>>I agree that this is a thing, of course. But it makes for very low quality discussion, since non-toxic users will just let the toxicity fester instead of engaging to mitigate it.
I do not make rules of reddit(I feel that the discussion somehow has took that direction, where... I am defending reddit?) - I just speak from my experience.
There is a reason, why humans can not have on their mind more than one enemy - their brains can not keep track of all the enemies as keeping track of all of them is a nightmare scenario, where brainpower is used just to keep track of all of them. As long as mods are humans, there are no good solutions to keep track of all warnings - maybe AI can do that, but keeping all that information in head is too much garbage - if I have to manage any such forums, banning is the best option for warning, as my brains are not unlimited. If a person convinces, that he has learned a lesson, then the ban can be lifted. Some bans can even expire, so it does not really matter.
When I think of warning, it also has additional information: how long it has to stay, until it is forgotten(because it is not a ban), what that warning was about, because you can't really make warning to kid not to touch hot surface and scald for the same reason, if he touches electric power cable - they are completelly different cases, so I am looking from that viewpoint, that there does not exist proper warning system and 'Reddit Enhancement Suite' is not it as well - from the description it still sounds, that it is meant for banning - not warnings, where warnings are meant to educate and protect people. Warning system means a lot of involvement and without AI, that is not viable, especially when no one is going to pay you for that kind of job.
>>Returning with a new account after being permbanned from a 'sub' counts as ban evasion
Not, if you return with different email, as reddit can ban email, but not a person, so this rule can not be implemented to a person and can be read as guideline. Unless you are a complete idiot and post your id data and after being banned from sub, come back and state that you have returned, then that rule can be applied in that case. And I perceive that rule exactly how it is technically done - that they might ban account and maybe email, that was attached to it - rest takes too much effort and is not really possible to do by reddit(at this stage).