Abuse of the system is annoying, but it needs only a couple tweaks to make it work just fine. Make it so that ready check cannot be initiated if engaged and cannot be initiated for 5 minutes following a check that everyone responds to as ready.It works much better than that traditional, "/p Everyone ready?" to which 1 or 2 people respond regardless of the circumstances.

Allowing anyone to turn it off would make the system completely useless for everyone.