Something always bothered me about this episode and after I watched it today I realized what. It's the fact that the station still exists at all. Why would the Cardassians abandon it, but leave it relatively intact? We know they pretty much gutted and sabotaged Terok Nor when they left it. Now maybe the latter was just out of spite, but it seems like it would be standard procedure to retrieve as many assets as you could. And if you couldn't salvage anything, then self-destruct it. Why leave anything of value behind? And why leave people behind to guard it? I'm not one to go around trying to poke plot holes in every episode but this seems a pretty glaring problem. Just doesn't make any sense.
The fact that they left those 'guards' behind in stasis, always gave the impression they planned on coming back at one point. With Terok Nor, it was different. They didn't just leave the station, they left Bajor, intending to leave it alone. So they took whatever they thought they needed. The reason they didn't do that with Empok Nor, was so they could come back and re-start it in a heartbeat. That, and the plot required it.
Another option is--for whatever reason--they hauled ass out of there in a hurry. Experiment gone wrong, maybe one of the guards--who knows. They leave and figure they will come back later and retake the station, or the Cardassians don't worry about it cause if anyone does find the station and board it then it sucks to be them.
Even with Terok Nor, the impression I got was that the military was told by the politicians to leave the station in a move that took them by surprise and disbelief. So they left, but with the hope of returning basically the next day. Which they almost did, in "Emissary", until Kira put up a spirited resistance. The hope of returning resulted in them only doing a half-hearted job at destroying the station. Not only would it have been a major economical loss to have to build an all-new station at the expected return, but it would have been time-consuming - and the Cardassian military knew the Federation was out there, waiting to step in, so it would be of essence to secure defensible positions ASAP after the politicians got their "withdrawal" silliness sorted out. The military was in poor position to dictate anything at that time, of course: they had been thoroughly humiliated in "Chain of Command". It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Detapa Council took this opportunity to force the Central Command out of all of its unprofitable and embarrassing ventures, including the already milked-dry Bajor but also Empok Nor. It would help if we knew what Empok Nor was intended to do. It looks identical to Terok Nor, which we know was an orbital refinery with major spaces dedicated to ore processing, plus a base from which to intimidate an occupied planet. Perhaps Empok Nor was under tow, on its way to another occupied world, when the Detapa Council told the military to abandon the occupation and to pull back to defending the homeland? Abandoning the station in mid-space, still far from enemy territory, would be a safe "waiting" option; Cardassia could recover the station later on, if the need arose. It's just that Cardassian military might and conquest ambitions subsequently withered and died, leaving the station free game by the time of "Empok Nor". Timo Saloniemi
Maybe it's simply not standard Cardassian procedure to self-destruct if forced to abandon a station like the Nor-class. We know that it is for Starfleet vessels and stations, if there's a chance of military equipment and/or secrets getting into enemy hands. But the Federation is plentiful, while Cardassia has always been a resource-poor culture - that's the whole reason they invaded Bajor. So maybe, as the others have suggested, they deliberately left the stations largely intact with the hope that one day they would be able to return to collect that hardware, rather than wasting the resources on destroying it and having to build another. And the psycho soldiers were their booby trap security system in the meantime. It's their own way of stopping military secrets falling into enemy hands - anyone who tried wouldn't survive the attempt. .