Like the others I'm not sure making a thread complaining against a subject was a good idea but anyway, here's my answer.

Personally, I'm in favor of death penalty. While they don't need to be extremely harsh, they need to be enough to make you dislike dying. I find that it's a way to bring tension or excitement to the game(not sure if that's the right way to say it but whatever).

I explain, currently there's no afterthought for dying. In a fight when you see you might lose, right now, the common reaction is just to continue the fight the same way and if i die, well that's it and if i way, it's cool.

But with a correct death penalty, it's different. Since death is something you hate, you'll do your best to stay alive. If you might lose the fight, you'll try thing like fleeing, using a potion, using the terrain to your advantage, call for help or anything else that can increase your surviving chances. You would probably keep food on you since anything that increase your surviving chances is good and be more careful about gear choice(by that i mean use something in the correct rank range).

Still that's just my opinion. I see death penalty as a way to increase "challenge" and turn a lot of useless game mechanic useful. When you don't care about surviving, why would you care about stuff that don't give you an incredible advantage like the potions or food? As for the challenge part, it's just that when I'm in a dire situation, i want to have the feeling that it's a dire situation, not think, whatever, i'll just try again in 5 mins.

However I do understand people who see it as a time sink and find that mechanic useless.