Saying goodbye to a deleted character

Timekeeper on WoW LJ had to say goodbye to a friend recently. After 70 levels, countless instances, gear upgrades, and raids, circumstances lead him to decide that his mage should no longer exist, and so he typed "DELETE," and sent her to the big graveyard in the sky.

I can't bear to do it, myself-- I think I've deleted maybe one or two characters for space ever, and even then, though they were only level 5 or so (about 20 minutes of leveling, probably), I still cleaned out their bags and sold off and mailed away their gear. Like most people, I couldn't imagine deleting one of my 70s on purpose-- even if I don't ever play them again, I couldn't be the one to wipe out all of those accomplishments (virtual as they are) forever.

Have you ever killed a character past level 60 before? Did you just delete them, gear and all (like a bandaid), or did you strip them down and send the parts to your other toons? And do you regret it at all? We should all keep in mind that these are just characters in a game, of course, but having your progress wiped in anything you do is always a loss that can be felt.