122? How long have you played that specific game???? I've actually only had a main character die once. He was executed by an enemy lord and the game crashed when he was executed (a year or two ago). Once it crashed I changed what I did on reload to make sure I wasn't captured by the executing lord again.
I do play with the death options on and I have family members and companions die in battle (and occasionally old age). I don't believe I've ever seen a companion, family member, or even other lord live into their 70s before though. However, I'll also say when the game gets to the point where I feel I can't make any more progress with it, or its exceedingly tedious, I start a new game with the newest version/upgrades, hoping for improvement. Usually I'm disappointed to find things haven't improved much. I don't play on the easiest settings as I consider it baby smacking, but at the middle difficulty settings I usually enjoy the game until the kingdom I'm with has taken about 1/2 fiefs on the map. After that its just a tedious, frustrating, game.