One thing I don't like about retaliation in baseball is that about 50% of these questionable hit batsman situations, for example, are unintended. We've all seen this time and time again. We say this retaliation is stupid and childish. We've also seen this with slides... maybe questionable but not violent or intended to injure.
Yet retaliations are close to 100%.
Most of the time, I think it's better to bad mouth to the media players you doubt, but only rarely retaliating on the field. And, why put a guy on base, when you have a chance to really bare down and get him out.