Extremely mild punishments for academic misconduct
The situation you describe in your last paragraph does not sound like business as usual at all: on the contrary, it sounds so bizarre that I am having trouble picturing it taking place.  (This is at a top 10 university in the US??)  I suppose there must be more to the story, but: granting what you say, indeed this professor does not have the right to publish the paper without your permission.  Especially if you think the work is not valuable enough to be published, you should absolutely contact the journal ASAP to withdraw the paper.

Unfortunately I suspect that you're correct that punishments for faculty who plagiarize or commit other forms of academic misconduct are distressingly light, in particular for many of the reasons that you suggest.  If someone is caught intentionally falsifying data or -- the horror, the horror -- submitting a knowingly false proof, then the community as a whole is going to feel victimized and take some steps to ostracize or ban this faculty member.  However, if it's a case of stealing material from a student: it pains me to say this, but often the easy course is to slap the faculty member on the wrist and look out to be sure that this behavior is not repeated in the near future.  

I don't know what other people are doing, and I have heard more stories of faculty skullduggery on this site than in the rest of my life combined.  But for whatever it's worth, 99.9% of all faculty members I've ever met would sooner break into my office and steal my computer than steal a paper from a student.  If the trends are different in other fields and/or other parts of the world (and I think they must be, to an extent), I am really sorry to hear that.  Academia without academic integrity is one of the most hollow pursuits I can imagine.