MMORTS- good idea?

We all know for the most part what regular RTSes are about. You build bases, train units, and then obliderate (or be obliderated by) the enemy. Simple, right? Definitely. But when you make it so that buildings are permanent, you control your own nation indefinitely, units carry on from skirmish to skirmish, and the ability to decide the fate of a whole people, you get a whole different spectrum of gameplay. What I'm talking about is the new idea of an MMORTS- a game where everything is persistent, even the units. I actually enjoy this idea very much, and am constantly playing a game called "Dreamlords", where you are a spirit-being recently re-awakened to command a race and reclaim your land from your (computer controlled) enemies. I feel a great bit of excitement knowing that my choices early on will affect my development when I journey further into this game. The gameplay is two-fold: you fight battles, manage armies, and capture PvP territories in the client; you manage your nation, your Dreamlord, and your "Convergence" (the Dreamlords form of "guilds" in other MMOs) from a browser based app. This may sound like a pain in the neck, but it works fine on my computer.

One of the various problems with Dreamlords and other MMORTSes is the fact that it could potentially take forever to research different technologies and raise your population. Assigning peasants to different buildings increase the research speed, but even with 30 people in the Barracks, it takes 40 minutes to research a new unit type. Peasants flock to you periodically every 10 or so minutes, which again means you'll need to wait awhile for them.

Another problem is the combat. Most combat encounters are similar, with unique "quests" here and there. But there isn't much strategy to be found in the battle, unless you equipped "tomes", or special abilities, to your units or Dreamlord. However, this is countered by the pre-battle phase, where you manage the units that go into the battle with you. THIS is where the strategies are made. Determining which units are best against different sorts of enemies is key to victory.

This is all I have at the moment, so I might as well finish here. But FIRST! A few rules for posting: if you are going to debate on weather MMORTS's are good or bad, you must have facts backing your statement, otherwise it's biased and will be ignored. So, without further ado, [Discuss/Debate]

Bad, mostly because of the units as they can't level up.

Stay in the corner, build up and watch as your two enemies cripple each other, then swoop in and eviscerate them. Not really fair.

Dreamlords actually only features one versus one PvP. But what you're talking about is possible in Saga, another MMORTS. BUT, Saga has unit levels.