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You know Since everyone is chiming in on what they think.. I'll throw my two coppers in...and to my knowledge nobody is right or wrong. Its the rule that is too open to interpretation.

It is my belief that the intention is to allow characters to return to life at the end of every adventure. With some exceptions. Exception A) is the Player doesn't want to return the character to life. Exception B) Something happens to the character in game the prohibits the character from returning to life. Falling into a volcano or desintigration or something along those lines.
( i believe these will be very special situations and very clearly defined within the text of the adventure)

If I read the raise dead right pg 311 of the PHB. only part of the body is necessary to raise a person and the time frame is quite long 30 days. Clearly the intention is not to overly penalize a player for a character death. i believe the intent if not the wording to mean that as long as the body still exist see exception B above the player may opt to return the character to life using Meathod A or B. I also believe that the DM leeway does not extend into actions outside of the adventure. The DM is free to modify the adventure in a way to make it more enjoyable for the players. His rulings do not extend beyond that arena. There is no provision for a DM to extend himself beyond the written rules of the adventure. He has no official authority within the campaign except as adjudicator and presenter of the story at hand. His authority begins and ends there. There is nothing specifically set aside for the DM to do other than present the module. Everything else and I do mean everything else is specifically up to the player in question. As long as the player stays within the guidelines presented in the CCG. I think hes golden within the eyes of the campaign. I would also like to point to the Chracter Death section of CCG 1.6 to support my claim that as long as its not exception A or Exception B. The character may return to life after death in an adventure. The rules as written there is nothing to prevent the player from taking the dead character to the next table at the end of the adventure and participating with the once dead character after paying the Death or envoking the Charity clause.

I'll go one step farther as for penalty phase. If a character dies one or more. Then the party is responsible for paying the cost to raise the dead characters. I believe this is the point in which the DM steps in. If the character was foolish in his opinion awarding more to the characters... This is no longer an individual game but a team game. I dont believe you can take things from previous Living campaigns and apply it here. This is a totally different animal. It may not appeal to everyone, but I believed it is designed to level the playing field between players and bring more players into the game.

The cost-free death issue is unlikely to be settled to all people's satisfaction. Through a number of different games tabletop and online, I have found some want to able to play without worrying about their time investment and others feel like they need to have a little something at stake to make things interesting.

I tend to be in the middle ground. I don't like the idea of completely flushing a character, especially a higher level one but, having a level, some treasure or some XP on the line seems about right.

I am ok with most of what was said above, I have to say you have a very narrow view, and are trying to apply previous campaign settings to the current one.

I do take exception as to the "those who lost the fights should not be there."
and not to start a flame war but lets look at the big picture.

You can replay mods at will. So irregardless of my winning or losing I could potentially be there. I can be the most hapless adventurer and still make the upper levels given time regardless of whether my character is successful or fails. As the team concept is the primary push in the game. My role individually is diminished. We could have failed for a variety of reasons. bad party mix, bad decisions at the table, bad dice rolls for the players or incredible dice rolls for the GM. The DM while given leeway is taken out of the administration picture. With the rules as they are presented. He is there to adjudicate the rules within the game only, Present the game, record successes or failures and award rewards. Thats is all. With the hard cap levels in place, I believe they are taking a hard stance against excluding any player from playing in the campaign. Gone are the days of Looking for a game at APL 8 for example. They have given you the game and hard capped levels. So have character come play. Death does have a penalty in cash an xp. Ydont lose purchased items in death, but loose change is gone. Tke a look at the arguments against the slotted magic items. Oh I want to hold on to the slotted spots in case something really good comes up.. Or I am saving my money for X. Not realizing of course that if you or a party member dies Cha ching... The DM is there to take your money. I think there is a misleading statement in the CCG and the boilerplate. In that the players "should" pay the cost for a character death. But I think that is only in there as DM protection against an inexperienced or incredibly stupid player decision.

I think everyone is correct in saying Death is not the same as it was before, but the entire game isnt the same as it was before. I don't think you can apply what has gone on before and apply it to now. I think the campaign administrators look at a) games played and then successes and failures.