You've really done some good thinking about which questions to ask, which is to say the right kind of thinking.

Here's a suggestion you won't support, nor will anyone else, because it's not practical: you can only play the game once. When you die, you're done.

There's no way to resolve the reincarnation dilemma otherwise. People will create code words, and have other people hold their wallet for a cut while the dier suicides, and then comes back to claim their stuff. I cannot see any way to prevent this.

I also can't see any way to prevent people from playing twice, so there's that.

You pointed out that there being serious consequences to in game actions should assist in causing folks to act more realistically in game, but this doesn't reflect reality. You mention that violence occurs in real life, and it occurs because of profit. Profit is a consequence.

Another consequence is kids.

We do all kinds of things in our lives because we are driven by our glands, rather than our brains. Otherwise our species would have died out long ago, because no one would choose to have kids. Breeding is an accidental byproduct of lust as far as people are concerned, and kids are expensive, time consuming, difficult to protect, etc...

It's much harder to succeed at say, building a house, when you're tending to a 2 year old. I speak from experience.

I fear there are no new ideas from me on how to create such drives in game as we experience in meatspace. I will continue to give it thought. Anyone else wants to goad me into some realization with a bit of barbed ridicule, please do pipe up. Little motivates me more than being ridiculed (now that I'm too old for glandular motivations) =p

Edit: a thought occurs to me that relates both these things. In meatspace, when we die, someone else gets all our stuff, usually our kids, or people we hate less than them. I could still see ways around it for someone dying of illness that drags on, or old age, but for sudden accidents or violence, inheritance would de-incentivize reincarnation economically.

These are issues that drive people in substantive ways, and aren't readily transferrable to a simulation.

I also found it quite ironic (in a good and enlightening way) that you point out games are intrinsically about rules, and the intent of the Nth game is to explore anarchy =)

A hint about real life in that, I think.