Your artist analogy is flawed. A better analogy would be an artist who decided to withdraw from the "art scene" and withdrew all of his paintings from galleries, choosing instead to store them away in his attic. Similarly, when a book goes out of print, it stops being available in book stores, but that doesn't mean that every copy everywhere is destroyed.
Originally Posted by Dawn
People will see that an addon is abandoned.
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People very often
don't notice that the last update for an addon was 3 years ago. Go take a peek at the addon help forum here, or over on WowAce. People post all the time about having just downloaded this addon that seems really great except it spams them with errors in combat, and had no idea that the addon hadn't been updated in years.
Originally Posted by Dawn
However, leaving it there will open up possibilities. Like someone else picking it up or posting a fix in the comments, inspiring others with a specific style, layout or code, yourself returning...
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Having "someone else picking it up" isn't always an option, if the author did not choose a license that allows modification and redistribution.
In any case, posts like this -- even if you didn't mean it that way -- come across as annoyingly entitled. Writing an addon doesn't mean I'm obligated to continue making it available to everyone forever, or that I'm now responsible for "inspiring others" with anything.