alternate endgame options

I was reading some books by fantasy author Dave Duncan, in which the various classes in his world were divided into seven levels, each being marked so people could tell what level people were. Political power was, to some degree, related to one's level. And I thought about how that would work in a massive game, but decided that people wouldn't be happy levelling so infrequently. And then I decided that the endgame would actually support it quite well - since many people at endgame tend to be pretty dedicated to the game, it would be interesting to create a separate form of level, and make the highest rank virtually impossible to achieve.

I had also thought it might be interesting to, for example, create more skill based endgame abilities - aimed shots and blocks in hand-to-hand, for example (if they don't already exist in your game of choice). It might be interesting to have various ways to progress through these end levels, for example a strategy route if you didn't want to deal with twitchy hand-to-hand, or something like that. The quests could be ridiculously long and involved, and require extensive travel, negotiation, etc.

In the end, I envision a system where perhaps a dozen people end up at the final level. Then give them real power - let them decide who to war with, or create new items, or something crazy.