Are you sure you're not putting the melancholy rose-coloured glasses on? People have been pendulum-swinging since 2001, when I heroed the first character on CF (Carrock). And it's all about keeping your shinies. Think about it -- what hurts the most in PK loss? The loss of good gear. No one cares about 1/3 CON loss, no one cares about bruised ego of losing a fight. But you touch my shinies and I go ballistic.

What's crazy is that *so many* new measures were implemented to address the gear loss. These schanges have been made over the years:
* autoloot/corpseguard flag
* MUCH better player-base (full loot was almost guaranteed in the past and almost never happens now).
* 'outfit' command.
* much better set of preps (Galadon/TirTalath has almost everything you need to get going).
* Bramblefield merchants.
* After death, stuff returns to your char directly, you no longer have to spam "get all pit" and compete against lowbie looters.

What's different? We used to have 60+ people online, so you gear was circulated faster. Now, with 15 people on, no one takes risks to lose the shiny piece, it's hard to organize epic trips for re-gearing, etc etc. Basically, if people stopped caring about gear, this problem would disappear.

But my point it -- gear is easier to come by now than ever.

And I say all of this, and I still covet my meagre set.