You've had that signature since I've been playing, and there has been lots that has gone on between now and then. Numbers could be higher, but that's true until we hit the login cap. People, myself included, are still having fun. To me, that's not dead. Perhaps you mean the CF that you remember, in the way that you remember it. That will be subjective to everyone here, and opinions will of course vary.

For my own part, I like being able to come back to my corpse and be able to continue on. I don't disagree with taking things, it's part of what makes CF unique and competitive, but after a certain point you are just taking things to waste someone's time. If you can use it, or it is a significant danger to you, take all those things. If you can't then let the other person walk away with something. With regards to the RP argument, basically most of the time that a someone dies it should be either a full loot, or a full sac. Almost all evil types would, and half of the goodie and neutrals would as a rough estimate. RPwise that's well and great, but being that critical of RP vs mechanics can make you dance a line with hypocrisy. How does your character deal the with the fact that no matter how many times they've cleansed the taint of evil/good/magic etc. from an area, once they leave for a few hours everything is back to the exact same condition as before they got there? There has to be an intellectual divorce from RP and mechanics from time to time, and full loot/sac is simply that, a mechanic. If you want your opponents to not feel constantly deflated you have to make some concessions, because if they aren't having any fun they will stop playing the game. Limiting how much you take is one way to take some of the sting away from just being beaten. I always expect that gold will be gone (which is why fighting outlanders can be less worrisome, unless you are decked in adamantium) and any above average gear that I have has a chance of being gone. The really good stuff I expect to be gone, as should anyone. It's a treat then when some of it is still there. But if I constantly have nothing to return to it starts to feel like a waste of time pretty quick. I can guarantee I would not have stuck around if every time I died my entire set was gone. You could say that weeds out the elites from the nubs, and it's true, but every elite was once a nub and the pool of elites grows ever smaller. Sportsmanship will keep the cycle going.