The Uru Problem

I love Uru Live, but I'm pretty much the only one.  I love the concept, I love the execution, I love the beauty of the environments, and yet it fails and fails and fails.  I think its been through 4 or 5 cycles of death and rebirth by now, having nearly bankrupted what used to be the richest video game company in the world, being resurrected each time solely because the people who made it believe in it too much to let it die.  The thing I want to know is why this happened.  

Archaeologists up, orcs down.

I remember when MMOs were a pretty new idea, and I'd never played one, but I'd heard about them.  I was really excited about the idea, but mostly because the games I was imagining were games like Uru:  Community focused, roleplaying intensive, "shared world" experiences with an emphasis on exploration and world building.  This is where it always seemed to me that the real potential of massively multiplayer gaming lay.  Instead, we have over 12 million people playing WoW while Uru hangs by a thread and the much-lamented SEED  died before it even left beta.  Do these concepts really not appeal to people?  I fully understand the addictive quality of the "get loot, get levels" style that's so dominant in the format, yet I don't see why that precludes the possibility of there being more mature, focused entries that actually use their collaborative nature for something more interesting than comparing your stats and ganking n00bs.

SEED was both in space and not about laser guns.  Apparently this caused the world to implode.

Am I missing something?  Are there any other story/environment/character driven MMOs out there that are doing OK?  Or is there simply no market for this kind of stuff?

Addendum:  In it's latest incarnation, Uru is entirely donation supported.  This means that if you're interested in playing, you should immediately go download it and try it, since it's completely free.  It offers an MMO experience remarkably close to my initial vision of what these sorts of games would (and should) be, with no levels, no stats, no swords,  and a remarkably fleshed out and detailed dead civilization to explore and understand.  It involves a lot of research and lateral thinking, and creates one of the most immersive game worlds I can name.