Tournament Withdrawers

In Australia there has always been a strong disapproval of players withdrawing from tournaments. I suspect this attitude can be traced as far back as the influence of CJS Purdy (who believed there was no excuse from withdrawing from an event), and possibly even before that.
But it is a fact of life that players do withdraw from events without completing them. So what is to be done?
One school of thought is 'damage minimisation'. Given you can't force players to stay in an event when they no longer wish to play, simply allow anyone who wishes to withdraw the right to do so. As long as they inform the arbiter before the pairings for the next round are done, then they can leave the tournament without penalty. From an organisers point of view this may be good, as you have already banked the entry fee, and a less than motivated player may effect the final standings through poor play. The other advantage of this approach is that a player is more likely to withdraw gracefully, rather than wrecking someone else's weekend by not turning up for a game.
The other side of the argument involves 'forceful encouragement'. When a player enters a tournament they are in a sense making a commitment to the organisers, and to other players. Part of this commitment is to play all the rounds they have entered for. And this commitment cannot be broken lightly. (eg How good would the AFL look if Carlton just dropped out 6 rounds before the end of the season)
However in this case, there needs to be some kind of penalty or punishment.
Over the years there have been a number of approaches, not all of them successful. The most common one is to ban the player concerned for a specified period of time. Unfortunately the draconian nature of this penalty means that it rarely enforced*. Another approach that was used in the very first chess club I played at (Woden Chess Club) was to get every player to post a forfeit bond ($5) at the start of the event, and refund it upon completion of the event.
A third method is to let the punishment fit the crime. If you withdraw from event X you cannot play in event X next year, or the year after. This has the advantage of avoiding any legal hurdles (due process etc) as the organiser of event X simply refuses to accepts the players entry. Of course this doesn't prevent the serial withdrawer from entering (and withdrawing) from other events.
The final option (and the one used in the last couple of Doeberl Cups) is to levy a forfeit bond on players who have been unapproved withdrawer's in the past. If they wish to enter the tournament they post a bond equivalent to the entry fee, if they complete the event, the bond is refunded. As well as that the slate is wiped clean (we're big believers in redemption).

I'm not advocating any of these methods btw, but am interested in a discussion on the topic, especially anyone advocating the 'damage minimisation' approach.

*The ACF lead on this issue is extremely poor btw. I've been involved with the 1999/2000 Aus Champs, and the 2000/01, 2002/03, 2004/05 and 2006/07 Australian Opens as an arbiter and organiser. As part of the requirements of the ACF by-laws I have submitted reports concerning unapproved withdrawals, and suggestions to the ACF concerning suitable actions. As far as I know only one play has been sanctioned, and that was by their State Association, rather than the ACF. The usual response from the ACF (in the case of a couple of high profile players) is "we haven't banned players in the past, so we can't do it this time. But we'll look into it in the future"