@Fribben : The whole point is to make high-risk, high-reward place. Apart from organizing teamfights, it would generally be scary and fun to come to such PvP desert. There is a similar concept in a MMORPG game runescape named "wilderness" which is basically a huge deserted area with few monsters where you loose most items upon death. I should mention that when they removed this feature, people were so frustrated there was mass leave from game(later they brought it back)
It's like PvP enforced within normal server
. Players who want to test their fighting skills would come there, solo or in groups. And about your concern, yea its true there is a threat people would go there and only there. That's why, first of all this place cannot be to small or dull so people dont get bored.
On one of ot servers there is also a non-PvP island with city and monsters, a nice place for red skulls/hunted/peaceful players.
I think its generally good idea to include different features of non-pvp/pvp-enforced server in one game world. Server with lots of sensible features is a place where every player will find something for him
I highlight sensible, because there are also "stupid" updates which make players leave...