It's an RP server, with players building complex characters in mind. Hard to build a complex character when your character dies before level nine.
Since this is a low-to-medium magic world, we don't have the nifty magic items that make us immune to death magic, or that raise our AC super-high, or... The list goes on.
The level requirements for items also serve to limit our survival abilities, as does the resting limit.
I think these things are all great, but playing on Hardcore rules would make it too tough. Were we able to do all the things we can in PnP, I'd gladly play Hardcore, but as I can't duck under a table, or pick up a rock, or sand, and throw it, or take a called shot to the carotid...
You get the idea.
