This. I agree with everything in this...except one thing. I have been rping for over 10 years and have learned to not fixate or take things so seriously. I love the stories I am in and while I write, I pour passion and creativity into it as if this is THE project of a lifetime. But after so long in this game, it is more detrimental to my enjoyment to get too emotionally wrapped up or focussed on a particular partner or story.
Stories die, people get bored, grow apart, etc. The joy in this hobby is to have fun while you can but when it ends, look forward to "the next thing." Then again, I don't wait very long for replies. I don't like to reread the rp too much because the repetition weighs everything else down. So, the more times that I have to go back and reread full posts just to remember what happened? Nope. I cut those rps off.
I also no longer put power into other people's hands as far as dictating what I am willing to tolerate. If they're consistently taking longer than between 12 hours-once a week to post, that's simply not fast enough for me. So, I don't sit there and agonize over whether or not they're enjoying themselves when it has taken a month to hear from them. I call it dead after two weeks(whether they say they're planning to post "soon" or not) and move on. I'm here to write, not sit and wait.