Ghoulification seems like a relatively trivial way to achieve immortality (or at least a dramatically increased lifespan) - that alone should probably make it coveted, if only as a desperate Pascal's Wager decision ("if I bathe in this pile of radioactive barrels it might turn me into a ghoul or kill me via rad poisoning - but chances are I'll soon die of old age anyway"). And, hell, in 200 years chances are someone would have found the ghoulification-as-opposed-to-death catalyst factor. So what gives?