Its come up before from newer players, but from what I heard in conversations with the servers' regulars, they highly would prefer permanence. I've gone on record and promised that Zeal Online would not be restarting, simply because most of our players prefer it that way.
One idea I was mulling over recently, and probably something we aren't quite big enough at this time to do, would be a sepreate "Zeal Online Race" server, which would be restarted every 3 months, and when it ends, all characters moved to the Zeal Online permanent server. Thus, those who prefer to race from the start of a fresh server will always have a new start every 3 months, and if they want to play their characters after it restarted, they still can on the Zeal Online "permanent" world. Of course, there would be in-game prizes given to those who achieve the highest level, skills, etc. every "season".
Its still a pretty raw idea but something I think we could pull off. Would be pretty neat, anyway.