John,
Completely agree with you. My post right before yours may not sound like it. As I do believe you need to hold them accountable and go with the creed if it is not in SFDC it doesn't exist. But at the same time you need to work with the sales team to set up a flow and a process which work for them. There needs to be a little give and take on both sides, but once you get that worked out, you must stick to your guns and not continue to make one off exemptions for those who do not follow the process. But getting their feed back and buy in to the process is critical.