" cheater "

Detriment #1 Overcorrects for and does not solve a, "real problem," which is...?
#2 Only real detriment you give is added public accusations. IMO people who want rating points back will talk to the people that do that.
#3 I honestly need elaboration here. I don't know what the reasoning is.
#4 is still glorified sandbagging, and I don't understand how playing beginners between a game and a refund gets you extra points.
#5 it is consistent so on to
#6 why would it change my opening choices, etc. ?
#7 I have only been defending engine cheat refunds, so you can have this one for saying that it gets complicated.
You say that the Glicko-2 ratings are resilient - which I won't argue with. Still, allowing known engine users to play rated games would honestly make me leave this site. I don't care about leaderboards, I care about the fact that I wanted to play a person, not a computer. What the heck is their rating even for? The skill of the engine? This would deflate all of our ratings because of the introduction of ultra strong players who aren't even people. I don't think that Glicko would cope well with that...

My two cents.
@Toadofsky
Maybe a mod can tell us what goes on.

Thanks thibault for the correction.

I guess there's still a way to "game" the leaderboard:
1. Farm rating points somehow to get a provisional rating of 3000
2. Play against suspected cheaters to reduce RD
3. Apply rating refund to get an established 3000 rating

#1 I'm not thibault. But thanks for the compliment!
#2 wouldn't RD be "unreduced" after the refunds?
It's not a word, but, hey, you know. It works, right? :)

Oh, I see thibault's comment now.
@Toadofsky

And I just bugged arex and nojoke for no reason. Rats.

Hope my edit-out of them worked...

@Jacob531 #1 Ratings are useful for matchmaking (pairing) purposes, and (as evidenced by FIDE, USCF, and others) are poor unidimensional predictors of game outcomes. I've not heard any reports about matchmaking problems due to rating gain/loss against cheaters.

#2 I've stated my opinion

#3 Refunds only apply to players who haven't already regained their points. But suppose that I'm rated 1900, then I lose 100 points against cheaters, then I wallop a 2000 a few times and increase my rating back to ~1900. As it stands now, I don't get refunded back up to ~2000... (and my RD is decreased by the cheater, so it's slightly more difficult for me to gain more points).

Then suppose I'm rated 1900, then I lose 100 points against cheaters, but I decide to stop playing until my points are refunded back to 1900. (After the refund, then I wallop a 2000 a few times and my rating increases to ~2000.)

It's possible to argue both sides of this false dichotomy: that undercorrecting only up to 1900 "makes sense", and that overcorrecting up to 2000 "makes sense". IMO refunds don't make sense.

#4 Similar to #3 (in the "overcorrection" case), supposing I'm silly enough to lose hundreds of rating points to cheaters, it's much easier to gain 500 rating points from 1500->2000 than from 2000->2500.

#5 What?

#6 A player may favor a draw against a high-rated opponent. For example, I could play an Austrian Attack against the Pirc, understanding that a 2500-rated opponent could play Bg4 with perpetual check. But if my opponent were rated 1500, I might not want to allow a forced draw on move 10 since my novice opponent might play it, wasting my time. (Of course, all of this is more complicated if my opponent is due a rating refund [positive or negative] from their other games and I can't predict what effect a draw will have on my rating).

I'm not suggesting that known cheaters should be allowed to accept seeks, to play in tournaments, etc. - I'm only suggesting that they should be allowed to play rated games
(if they can find an opponent and the opponent understands they cheat) & have a rating.

Again, ratings are for matchmaking purposes and in that regard, refunds aren't solving a real problem.

@Jacob531
#2 wouldn't RD be "unreduced" after the refunds?

Good question! If you start from an assumption that refunds make sense (which I don't) then any number of refunding schemes could be proposed:

a) "Delete" the cheater and re-calculate all players' ratings for the most recent rating period
b) "Delete" the cheater and re-calculate all players' ratings for all time
c) "Delete" games played by the cheater after the first incidence of cheating, and re-calculate all players' ratings for all time
d) Don't refund points, but instead refund RD making it easier to regain points
e) Same as d) and apply a bonus to RD, making it much easier to regain points

@Toadofsky I don't know about you, but while I could argue this for a lot longer, it doesn't appear that we're going anywhere or accomplishing anything. Want to call this one a draw?

Not to mention that we turned a GCD thread into a feedback thread... :)

@Jacob531 Note that I started my comments stating:
"I'm not going to pigeonhole myself to "it shouldn't be done" although I believe that - I'd rather discuss positive and negative consequences."

Then you asked my opinion, and I offered it. And you asked questions, and I answered them. Are we having an argument?

I'm not trying to advance "it shouldn't be done" because it's a wildly unpopular (though IMO, well-educated) opinion.