Steve,
All that I have mentioned is from past experience and what I used successfully when I was managing retention (3 years back) for a group of casinos for one of my previous employers.
And it had worked wonders for the casinos in retaining players. 
This is very true for the case which Steve has mentioned. A complaining customer is more likely to be one of your most of your loyal customers if his issue is dealt with effectively. These things don’t cost much. If you consider the entire scheme of things, comps will be the lowest expenditure in the list. Most players just switch and don’t bother to complain and operators brand them as low value players.
And at times these players are categorised as bad source of traffic and very conveniently the affiliate :crazy: is blamed for not getting good quality of players.
Cheers,
Satya