Many of these mechanics weren't in there during alpha/beta/launch, but came shortly after. But the essential part that was always in there is 'you will die, and get looted' which never happens in modern games.
edit: http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkfallOnline for anyone interested.
DayZ? Minecraft?
The majority of players prefer these be in place - otherwise, why keep doing it? But there's still a significant segment of the market that pines for the day when games really kicked you in the ass.
So enter DayZ, and some psycho player with an Axe chases you while playing a creepy loop of a seven year old girl singing, and exploits bugs to kill you completely unfairly, there's a small but significant number of players that will fall in love with a game like that.
But you're not going to convert even a large share of Black Ops 2 players with that experience. It would be like making every car an Ariel Atom.
Later versions (GT4 especially) were much easier, with many more races and tracks and cars. But is it more fun? Is it fun for advanced players to grind through easy races? (even with weird features to increase difficulty and earnings from races?)
Minecraft, no. The majority of Minecraft players have actually never been ganked. It happens, but it isn't a critical part of the game. I've played 50+ hours of Minecraft MP and never been ganked. Fell in lava, but never ganked.