Agreed, Mowgli. The problem with PBP isn't that combat takes too long; it's that players (sometimes including the DM) often begin to slow down posting a lot or vanish altogether while the others wait in vain for the next post.
Some of this might be inevitable - enthusiasm tends to wane after a few weeks, just look at the average post length as you read an IC thread over time. The first few introductory posts - even if it starts with combat - are typically long and full of flavor and description. A few pages later the same player just posts "I cast magic missile" in combat or "I tell him 'OK lets go'" out of combat - and that's his only post for a week.
Pacing should be maintained somehow at about 1 post/day. That also means that posts should NOT come too frequently. I've been in some PBP games where I just couldn't keep up; some of the players and/or the DM were treating it more like an IC chat room where you could go away for a few hours and find 20 long posts of dialog, often in the nature of a romantic interest between a PC and an NPC. I call this a "flurry of posts". Sorry but that does ruin the game for the other players who are being left out and who want to take the game in another direction. But, this problem is much less common than slowdown.
Living Pathfinder has somehow done a better job than most other games in maintaining pacing and interest. I think that might be because players know that if they drop out they not only lose that game but also won't be able to use the character in future games, and characters in LPF are a limited resource.
One thing I've tried in the past is rewarding players for posting. I think it was something like they get a +1 bonus that can be applied to any roll and (which can stack) for every 5 (or 10?) different days in which they have posted. This seemed to help a bit but I don't remember how much.
Some of this might be inevitable - enthusiasm tends to wane after a few weeks, just look at the average post length as you read an IC thread over time. The first few introductory posts - even if it starts with combat - are typically long and full of flavor and description. A few pages later the same player just posts "I cast magic missile" in combat or "I tell him 'OK lets go'" out of combat - and that's his only post for a week.
Pacing should be maintained somehow at about 1 post/day. That also means that posts should NOT come too frequently. I've been in some PBP games where I just couldn't keep up; some of the players and/or the DM were treating it more like an IC chat room where you could go away for a few hours and find 20 long posts of dialog, often in the nature of a romantic interest between a PC and an NPC. I call this a "flurry of posts". Sorry but that does ruin the game for the other players who are being left out and who want to take the game in another direction. But, this problem is much less common than slowdown.
Living Pathfinder has somehow done a better job than most other games in maintaining pacing and interest. I think that might be because players know that if they drop out they not only lose that game but also won't be able to use the character in future games, and characters in LPF are a limited resource.
One thing I've tried in the past is rewarding players for posting. I think it was something like they get a +1 bonus that can be applied to any roll and (which can stack) for every 5 (or 10?) different days in which they have posted. This seemed to help a bit but I don't remember how much.
However, players’ interest is usually not driven by little things like that. 
