I think chatting is a lot more fun then \'the game, stats, swords and quests\', as you say. But if you\'re not going to use the world at all, there isn\'t much of a point to role-playing.
If you\'re going to avoid having a conversation with anybody, you\'re either a power-leveller, or missing the whole point of multiplayer.
There\'s plenty of room for everybody, somewhere between IRC and powerlevelling. To me, the world is there to chat about, and to roleplay with. The chat bit is works fine for me, a more detailed world always helps. Whenever I forget to remind myself about this, PlaneShift quickly becomes boring, regardless of whether I\'m at Kada El\'s, or out in the wild.