That's not really true lol. He bounced around a ton, so much that I had to look it up to count! So while he's had somewhat the same character for a long time, it's never really been in the same place for very long. His current WWE run is his longest in one place.
He's had six different stints in WWE. Those are punctuated by three WCW runs, two TNA runs, at least one retirement, and an indy run. Not including his All Japan and USWA runs between his WCW and WWF debuts.
He's out right now due to double knee surgery he had in the summer.
Ah, didn't realize he had jumped around as much. At least it goes to show that WWE was still comfortable enough to bring him back so often, and keep him "in character", so to speak, instead as something/someone completely different.
I mean... We're talking about WWE booking here. Just because they keep him in the same character to appear sporadically doesn't mean it's fresh and effective.
I'm not saying it's fresh, necessarily, but it is effective. Everyone knows Goldust, he's been around long enough for his early fans to grow up, have kids, and have their kids be fans of the same exact character.
And on that note, he's one of the few remnants of a time where people created and built characters or alter-egos.
Outside of Undertaker and Kane, how many others are left besides Goldust? Nowadays everyone just has a generic ring name.