why not at least a 2 day suspension from posting for posting/deleting etc...

Because the person I caught doing it was an otherwise valuable contributor to the forum. When I caught them the were very surprised and embarassed by it. I didn't need to do anything other than tell them that I noticed that they were doing it.

This is another reason I think the rankings are counterproductive. Someone did this who was, in all other aspects, a valuable contributor.

So what does that say about the post counts? To me, it says that even the best of us can be corrupted by that sort of thing. Any time you attach a "score" to something, it becomes competitive. And any time you have a competition, you are going to have losers and winners, as well as cheaters. Also, anywhere there are losers, there are people with hurt feelings.

Imagine if I told you that my post count was so high because I'd artificially increased it by doing the post/delete thing. I didn't do that, but what if I had? You'd instantly lose any remaining shreds of respect for me that you might have had, and the entire postcount ranking system would be useless. So tell me again, how useful are the post counts?