> Why not just ban the transfer of tickets and allow refunds?

There are laws against transfer bans. Also, people don't like being required to provide identity information just to buy a ticket to a live event, and venues HATE enforcing identity checks.

...and you'd be surprised how often you can get a refund on tickets just by asking your venue for a refund.

> First choice in seats goes to the most passionate and attentive fans.

Now you've opened the debate about how to determine which fans are the most passionate and attentive... ;-) Ticketmaster has a service for this that attempts to address this called Verified Fan.