I absolutely disagree on there being a penalty for surrender.
In real life, a player can scoop without penalty beyond the fact that they lost the game.. This should always be the case.

I very much disagree on the higher penalty for surrender. If anything, the difference on bits gained from fully played matches and matches where opponent surrenders should be removes. Look at it this way:
-If i have a good clean match and my opponent gets the better of me then i agree on surrendering being a dick move.
-However, when you draw a brick hand and all match is just going to be nothing but you being a punching bag, you really expect the player to sit through a whole one sided match?

I suggest for adjusting the game so that surrendering is not going to be a big deal at all.

While I agree that surrendering is something people should avoid doing, we shouldn't penalise it too much.

If you penalise surrendering too much people will simply log out. So let's make the logout penalty even harsher than surrendering you say? well that's a very bad idea: the game bricks relatively frequently, and when the game bricks against your will you will get slapped with that harsh penalty for no reason.
If you do not raise the penalty on logout people will log out instead of surrendering. Logging out causes the other person to wait idly for 90seconds, they can not surrender or they will hand the win so they are forced to sit it out. When people log out against you they are basically punishing you. When people surrender you can immidiatly start a new one against another person.

Although I somewhat agree with your point, I have had many times when I had to concede in the interests of time. For example, if I had to arrive at an unexpected event, I would not want to be punished because that event is more important than a game of Pokemon.

Slight edit to my above comment, people who quit because they do not like their starting hand are in fact ridiculous and I agree with your post, and for the most part I actually do agree that a penalty wouldn't be a bad thing if someone obviously quits before they even really play. I apologize for the harsh tone before, and I see your point in certain situations, but I just hope everyone plays with the intent of being good sports. My kids love this site and I would never want them to feel ashamed for admitting defeat, thats all I meant earlier and I again apologize for being critical of your point.

OK, you must be new to this thing called sportsmanship. If we were playing OTB then I would definitely concede when I see I am beat. If all you want to do is deliver that final blow just to make yourself feel better then I think your attitude speaks for itself. This is a kids game and to teach good sportsmanship is paramount to ANY oneupsmanship. If you want to test your deck out I would think that seeing you won is what you wished to achieve. Who cares if someone surrenders?