[Mother Nuru.]

Okay, so from reading all of this, I can pretty much go back to staffing how I was when I first started, with multiple warnings, then actions. I used to heavily do that because it's what I was taught to do on Sona. Shanklette is an example of how I staff.
I'd love to suggest we implement the warning system, as it'll help bring about the kind of environment it seems you're wanting to creating. It brings up a pop up warning on the players screen so they cannot say that they were not warned. With this also comes a log of the staff member who sent the warning, and what the warning was for admin/owner to check. This became a huge help over on the past two servers where I staffed, as it kept things lax, as you had a visible control over who was and wasn't being too strict or causing issues on the server/etc.
I'd also like to suggest what others said, about physically updating the rules list, have it say things like warn first, action after. Chances to be given, are the reason players come back.