Interesting thread. I need to go back and re-read it more closely. My initial thoughts/comments:

I estimate that the celebration of a friend's wedding ends up costing me and my significant other approximately $1000 if we are close friends and the wedding is out of town. That estimate includes 2 plane tickets, 2 nights of a hotel, a gift and perhaps attendance/payment towards a bachelor party. While etiquette says that there is no correlation between what people spend on their wedding and the amount of the gift you buy for them, I think the assumption has always been that the bride and groom lay out more money per person than they get back. That's probably true if you look at cost of gift versus cost of attendee. However, the more I look at my budget as a wedding guest, the more I wonder who really "bears a higher cost." Did the bride and groom spend $1000 on the two of us? I doubt it. So my opinion is that on a per person basis it currently costs more to attend a wedding than to hold one.

Having said that, I think that the rationale "the bride and groom are taking a hit so you can be there, so they should get the points" doesn't hold water. If I take the vacation days, buy the plane ticket, pay for the hotel, pay for a gift, then yeah I guess I do at least want my points. My 2cents.