I have had a number of occasions where myself or an opponent has timed out for not moving in the first 15 seconds of a tournament game.
However, I noticed that rating points are still exchanged in this case, surely if no game is played no points should be gained.
I never thought about that, but now that makes sense, surely your rating shouldn't increase because of a time out.
We have had this discussion before, TL;DR is that players have to be punished for not committing to the tournament and this is a fair way without being too harsh.
The rating system is there to estimate the relative strengths of players, its not there to be used as a punishment mechanism.
If you wish to punish someone then do it within the scoring system of the tournament.
It is already done in the scoring system -- it breaks streaks and wastes your time (as tournaments are finite), it has to be more meaningful though.
Also, it's pretty standard practice and all rating system authors accept it; if your opponent doesn't show up, you win by default. This is true from FIDE regulations to FIFA matches.
As I said, this has been thought about extensively. :P There are answers for virtually every argument.