I too am a Carebear.
I always feel resorting to combat-CvC, on ALFA is important should the RP ever reach that point, but to result into fatal CvC is entirely avoidable (and IMO unnecessary and fueled entirely by OOC motivations on the player's part).
6 years I played Daramir EveningStar on ALFA1 and I have been involved in dozens of CvC (he was a 12th level Chaotic Neutral Fighter of Tempus, with a temper). The only deaths I recall were the many many times Daramir killed his attackers who always struck the first blow, and then Daramir would heal them back up. One epic time Daramir was the target of a long term pre-planned assassination by another PC (with DM help) - all IC - and even then, Daramir beat the attacker... killed him... saved him before he bled out... healed him... gave him back his weapon... told him to get lost... then that attacker attacked AGAIN... Daramir killed him a second time... then healed him up .......again.
Dara asked him if he'd like to try a 3rd time, but the assassin declined. Among many others.
.......valn99, do you remember?
-=-=-
8 years playing Bu, he was involved a few times. Like when those followers of Auril were terrorizing the Moosheas in ALFA2. That was trippy. Nutbars all of them

. And of course on BG when shad0wfax was finding his feet (heehee) with that nutjob female Cleric he played for a little while. Bu chased her but alas has not had a CvC incident that went beyond verbal abuse or the odd Hold Person to calm silly PCs who wanna drop the gloves.
-=-=-
But in the end, it didn't matter what they did, I found it very easy to RP many ways to avoid having to kill off another player's PC. And believe me, there were many times the attacker(s) TRULY deserved it (IC), and the player's even declared OOC (as required) that CvC is approved, and they resigned the fact that they might be killed. Still never needed to happen. Even if the PC might be a jackass IC (good RP!), players put a lot of effort into their creations, and the wilderness is challenging enough. Plus I do enjoy finding all those corpses to loot in the sewers and forests from time to time.

I think I would feel less guilty looting them if I was not the one who put them down......