I think it is all situation. All characters should be eligible to die in a roleplay like this, because we can't have 'Mary Sue' characters just running around. It does suck to have a character you've spent so much time and effort on to just die, but inevitably, it's going to happen. Unless you leave the forum or retire the character to a nice villa on the beach.
I've had two (four if you include minor secondary characters) who had died, and I did contest one a long time ago. I think a large issue with death is the perception of fairness in your character's passing. One was a Jedi Master who lost a lightsaber duel, and my other one was a criminal who was just on the wrong ship at the wrong time. It was an evacuation thread, and so there were a lot of NPCs and a few PCs on one ship, with a single pilot. For some reason the pilot ignored the opportunity to make the jump and instead engaged in combat. the RPers involved in that were definitely not happy with the result, but there wasn't really a fair justification for the passengers to survive.
tl;dr = Don't mind characters dying, as long as I am in control of the situation, and it's my own fault that they don't survive.