Miners Create Their Own Work? Conceptually, even if the network doesn't have any "real" transactions, the very act of mining creates new transactions to be mined. Self fulfilling prophecy. 

So, what is the real purpose of mining if the network is virtually dead? I suppose at that point the currency would be worth nothing and no one would mine it.

This is a bit of a philosophical question :-)

Likewise, is this similar to how pre-mining works? Where the creators mine the coin ahead of it's release?
The goal of mining is essentially to (i) create new coins out of thin-air and (ii) to secure the network from double-spending attacks.

So no, the act of mining does not create new transactions to be mined, and it does not create work for itself. It validates transactions and keeps the nodes of the network on the same state.