Let me start off by saying that it seems like most people favor item dura loss. I really believe this is the best option and let me list a few reasons why.
1)If it's done like in UO, it will remove some of the high end gear without breaking people's backs. In UO they had it so gear could be repaired back to 100% QL but the dura would be lowered by 1. So if an item was at 90% dura left (1 death) and you repaired it. Say it was 90/100. After the repair it would be 99/99. This means that after 100 repairs (assuming 10% uses up 1 permanent dura). It would be a very very long time for good gear and crappy gear would break much faster.
2)Put a new system in for repairing and a reason to use high skills (leathercrafters would repair leather items), much better economy and community building system.
3)Would stop people from deathporting massive stacks of items for fear of lowing the dura.
4)Give more of a survival feel to the game of not wanting to die.
When I played with you, I've seen you die a few times. Just in the limited play time with you. You also used the deathporting option to move items.
But it would make those items of more value because of how long they lasted. It would also be better for the economy as a whole because currently, items like never break.
This helps trading not hurts it. Players will not be able to deathport massive amounts of items around the map, so local trades will be encouraged more. Also because items are being removed from the game more, more crafting and trading.
We don't even know how much $ it will cost per death, how can you even say it would be hard or easy for anyone? What if it were 1$ per death to repair?
If the repair is based on the QL of the item and max dura, it wouldn't be hard on new players at all.
I see no reason why we need to separate types of deaths.
I for sure do not like the death choice option because then again you are still allowing deathporting massive amounts of items.