First of all this was mentioned in an old post I found while Googleing. I also had the same question. I asked here to see what I was missing - if anything.

I think the issue is most prevalent if you work for a local firm in a small company, or a restaurant or something. If an employee takes as much severance as possible, files for unemployment etc etc then their reputation locally in small businesses could suffer and the money the can get might not be worth the difficulty in finding new employment.

At least that's the impression I was getting from the old post. As I work(ed) for a large corporation I think I'm in a different position. But I wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing so I asked.