They stopped deleting characters a few years back. I have known individuals that stopped playing back in 2005 recover their characters in 2011. Most people who I've seen lose their characters have been because they lost all of their log in information, including codes.

Even in the case of a Lost ID, if you have your original codes and a few other key pieces of information (name address registered at the time etc) you can call customer support and have the account recovered.