[lacer]

Maybe institute a temporary rule where after a certian number of warns, the gags start, and after a certian number of gags, they are banned for maybe 10 minutes, ramping up to an hour, and then day bans from there, resetting the process the next day (giving people who had a bad day some leeway)?

This is already the rule. The problem isn't that the rules aren't strict enough, the problem is they're not being enforced properly.

edit: The process is usually supposed to go: Warning, Gag, Round Gag, Kick, Temp Ban, Longer Ban, Even Longer/Perma Ban