Pre-Play-off Discussion on Reffing; Call for Refs to Meet

You are clearly confusing issues here. Refs have the power to stop the game, to eject players, to bin players. Whether a particular ref can or does use this power is a different issue.

I don't think I'm confusing issues here. The penalties are there to discourage players from attempting to gain an unfair advantage, by making it disadvantageous to adopt a strategy of cheating, thus encouraging the players to play cleanly. However, the refs cannot actually physically force the players not to foul.