A little behind, but a few of us in Korea had talked about this. First, I don't think we were being "punished" or that it was unfair. I ran into the same problem when I discovered the FEDY.... used up 99% of the caches nearby. So, traveling a little further wasnt tons of fun, but it was my own fault for eating up everything close.
However, the game caused me to skip caches I normally would have found... Because they didn't contain the reward I needed at the time. They contained the reward at the next step. We're not supposed to skip caches (unless We choose to) , it goes against the idea of what geocaching is about.
So, penalized or punished? Not really... But, I do feel your pain. I didn't like traveling so far, to skip caches, just to return a day or 2 later for those skipped caches.
But, hey, thanks for pushing the app on us ?