It won't help keep the rp alive, just the ooc alive. With the activity,  yeah, it brings us higher on the list when people view casual rp threads, but then they go and see that the last ic post was made a week ago? A month ago? It'll turn them away. (Any new people anyway) it's also hard to get new people because of how far we've come into the story.

People who are already a part of the story? Well, we'll see. Sometimes such a break in an rp messes up thought processes and motivations for writers.