This post is not in response to any particular post or person.

I don't see anything wrong with not starting your best team. Real life teams do it all the time. In our game, where people have limited usage, it would be foolish to start your best guys until they are worn out and then blow up. In one of my RT leagues, I had Beckett and Oswalt among my starters. Because of their early injuries, I intentionally decided to use them only as relievers (and very sparingly at that) until I was far enough along in the season and had enough innings that I could close out the year using them as starters. I ended up having to use some truly awful innocuous starters in their place. I did the same thing with some injured position players. I lost more games than I won for a while, got lucky with a low PB value to get some decent monthly pick ups (I was never bad enough to be in the top picking group, but got a few no. 7 or 8 picks) and now am back in first with 60 games to go and have beckett back full time in the rotation with enough innings to last the rest of the season and Oswalt about to reach the same level. Judging from some of the posts I have read, some people would consider what I did early as tanking. I think it was good strategy which will hopefully take me to the playoffs this year. Thus, I don't ever consider someone not starting their best lineup to be out of bounds. I also don't have a problem with rookie lineups as long as everyone qualifies at the position. My team was truly awful last year, and I got more enjoyment out of just plugging in the INN rookies that I had high hopes for in coming years and letting them play and just tried to trade my old, half decent guys for future value. I don't think this is too far off what real ML teams do -- see detroit and san diego etc. -- and we are trying to duplicate the real thing. The difference I guess is we know in advance what the basic numbers will be. Anyway, I didn't consider this tanking, but some probably would.

That being said, intentionally walking seven guys to lose a game or starting a dh at ss etc. seems over the top and is not fair to your opponent's competitors. I would think the embarrassment factor of being called on it would be pretty decent punishment.