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The characters think passing on makes them re-incarnate. They are not sure
what happens after passing on.

Consider these points on why a sane person would not want to pass on:

  * You live in a world where you don't die (pass on) as long as you don't attend classes or be a model student. That means you **don't need to study** unlike in the real world where you are even beaten (happens where I live) or punished by teachers if you don't get good grades. You won't be humiliated by others for being dumb.
  * You can get **superhuman powers** just by writing a computer program. You could copy, share and edit programs and probably fly and double jump. You can become a super hero. You can. Deadpool has only regeneration and became a super hero, but in Angel Beats, it's the minimum power you have. What Kanade did was just the tip of the iceberg.
  * There are **computers**. You can play video games and program your own. You could create and share videos on sites or social networks like Youtube and Facebook. You can probably integrate websites or software into your powers and automate them. Free internet and computers which is a limited in the real world to the previliged few. Especially not computers which you can use to re-program yourself.
  * You could **reincarnate** into something or someone who is way worse off. The characters' lives are not really that unfortunate compared to many in the real world. You could be reborn as a holocaust victim or an activist who is tortured or a young girl in forced prostitution or a terrorist in Guantanamo Bay or a pig raised for meat in a closed cage.
  * You get **free food** and every other basic resource you need. You can create everything you want from dust. Consider being born in an impoverished nation during a famine.
  * You're probably going to **lose your memory**. Even if they reincarnate into someone like a Rich Kid who is always happy and enjoys his/her life (Which is very less likely in the real world) you'd still lose your memories. People by nature are afraid of memory loss.


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angel-beats
Why did Angel and Otonashi want to pass on and make others pass on?


I think senshin makes a lot of good points in the comments, but I can also see
where you're coming from with this; from a certain perspective, it does seem
like it would be better to try and stay in purgatory forever.

I would give two major reasons why the kids decide to pass on anyway, both
based on senshin's comments:

  1. It's philosophically, culturally, and narratively necessary that they don't squat in purgatory for all eternity;
  2. They can't really stay there anyway, because the place is constructed as a giant trap for exactly that kind of thinking.

Regarding point 1, think of it this way: in a Christian setting, God would not
allow people to just live fantasy lives in purgatory with no intention to pass
on. It would go against the philosophy of the Christian religion; in
Christianity, either you go to Heaven, or you go to Hell. God sends people to
purgatory to give them a second chance at Heaven, and if they don't take it,
they go to Hell. The very construction of the universe forbids people from
permanently living in purgatory. It's kind of like being someone with no
citizenship in any country; purgatory is like an airport, where you can stay
for a while but not forever.

Angel Beats uses more of an Eastern-style religious philosophy, but the same
idea applies. Who knows what happens to them if they don't take their second
chance, but in the Buddhist philosophy, escaping from the cycle of rebirth
through some backdoor like remaining permanently in purgatory is just as
unfathomable as escaping both Heaven and Hell by the same mechanism would be
in Christianity.

This is simultaneously an in-universe and out-of-universe reason. Out of
universe, the writers would have written it like this because that's what
their cultural background would lead them to. In universe, the characters
would want to pass on for the same reason: their culture is telling them that
it's unthinkable to just linger in purgatory forever, ignoring their problems.
(Since some kind of afterlife explicitly exists in the Angel Beats universe,
there probably _are_ safeguards of some kind to prevent permanent squatters in
purgatory, but we never see proof of this in the series since no one tries to
remain in purgatory with the express purpose of remaining in purgatory.) They
do all seem to decide, very quickly and suddenly, that they're ready to face
their problems and pass on, but the latter half of the show had all kinds of
pacing issues, so I count that more as a writing problem than an actual
inconsistency in the universe.

Regarding point 2, it's not only becoming model students that will cause them
to pass on; it's becoming fulfilled, in any way that allows them to move past
whatever was haunting them. This is abstract enough that it seems like no
matter how you tried to avoid it, you would eventually become fulfilled and
end up passing on. The SSS didn't because they were purposely holding on to
their rage, turning it over and over in their minds, dragged on by the
charisma of Yuri. But how long could they have actually stayed like this?

As we saw in Episode 3, all it took to send on Iwasawa was a really great
performance. She had no idea it was coming and didn't consciously seek it out
at all; she just happened to stumble on something that made up for whatever
she'd missed out on in life, and it sent her on. The things we saw send the
characters on in the last few episodes probably aren't the only things that
would have worked. For each of them, there is most likely a wide spectrum of
events that would have caused them to become fulfilled enough to pass on. Even
locking yourself in a windowless room might not have been enough to prevent
passing on; for all we know, if Yuri had sat in a dark room and thought long
enough about what happened to her siblings, she would have eventually come to
the same conclusion she reaches towards the end of the series, and would have
been contented enough with it to pass on. It's entirely possible that becoming
superheroes with all the food and Internet they wanted would be enough to
content them and send them on. There are traps everywhere for someone who's
trying to enjoy themselves in purgatory without passing on. The only surefire
way to stay in purgatory is to stay tormented and miserable, and where's the
fun in that?

* * *

To end with, I'll address a few of the specific points mentioned in the OP:

  * "You won't be humiliated by others for being dumb." Yuri does quite a lot of humiliation of the dumb. They don't mind because they like her, but bullying and social ranking can still exist in this world. I guess you can at least settle your differences in a sword fight or gun fight, though, since no one can die. The pleasure of repeatedly stomping down the people bullying you, though karmically a little iffy, might even be enough to send you off into the next life. 
  * "You can become a super hero." Sure, but to what end? There's no one to save and no one to fight. You could have fun leaping around the buildings for a while, until you think "This is so much fun! I love being a superhero!" and then poof, off to your next life.
  * "You can play video games and program your own. You could create and share videos on sites or social networks like Youtube and Facebook." We don't know how much of an Internet actually exists. There might not even be an Internet; you might be limited to desktop apps that you burn to discs made from dirt. Even if there is, there might not be any Facebook or YouTube, and you'll have to make them yourself. Then you'll feel all satisfied that you recreated YouTube, and then poof, off to the next life. On the other hand, the only operating system available is [Macrosoft Winding](http://angelbeats.wikia.com/wiki/Winding), which seems to be based on Windows, so using the computer might be a good way to stay angry and miserable so you don't pass on.
  * "You could reincarnate into something or someone who is way worse off." I actually think this is pretty unlikely. In Buddhist philosophy, what the kids are really doing when they come to terms with their bad memories is getting rid of a negative karmic seed and ridding themselves of an attachment to the physical world. These are good things in Buddhism; they help you reincarnate into a better state and bring you closer to breaking out of the cycle of rebirth. So if anything, they would probably reincarnate into a better life than the one they left. (And the "terrorist in Gitmo" scenario is unlikely because reincarnation in Hinduism and Buddhism starts you as a newborn, so even if you began as a newborn Yemeni villager, you would still have the choice _not_ to be a terrorist.) 
  * "You're probably going to lose your memory." They probably _were_ afraid of this when they chose to pass on. Kanade and Otonashi certainly were, anyway. But the other reasons for passing on were persuasive enough that they overcame this fear. 


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Angel and Otonashi's actions were not derived from logic, but rather from
their beliefs and convictions. They believed that people were not supposed to
permanently stay in the afterlife dimension. Their beliefs were probably
influenced by their religious/spiritual beliefs from when they were alive.

Their beliefs were supported by evidence in that world. For instance, the way
passing on works supported their belief. A person passed on when his/her
regrets had been eased. From this and other evidence, it was apparent that the
whole purpose of the afterlife dimension was to ease people's regrets and to
allow them to be reincarnated, rather than to provide a permanent paradise for
them.

Also keep in mind that staying in the afterlife dimension means that a person
has to hang on to his/her regrets. This means that anyone who stays there is
likely still suffering from his/her past memories, whereas anyone who leaves
has made peace with his/her regrets, and can forget them in his/her new life.


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The answers so far gave good reasons why people would not stay there but
missed one point I want to add:

People **did** stay in that world!

The unknown programmer (=other timeline Otonishi?) stayed for eons. The SSS
stayed for - who knows - maybe decades, maybe centuries, living almost the
life you described. They lived their affections, they played war with their
favourite weapons, and they did have their own little Utopia. They just did
not know about "Angel Player" and were not able to program the world like you
proposed. Kanade on the other hand understood the world as what it was
apparently meant to be and tried to help the others to move on (even by
force). Otonashi wanted to help people since he lost his sister and so both of
them wanted to help the others to move on.

BTW: Almost every one of the SSS did not move on until the shadows came and
threatened their bare existence so they had nothing to lose. Plus, it is part
of human nature to want catharsis. The only people who really had the choice
were the last five, and what should they do after every human and NPC was
gone? They had mostly made peace with themselves anyway.

EDIT: Plus it is likely that there are mechanics to repeatedly give people the
chance to go on - like the baseball match where the NPCs played exactly the
way Hinata needed to remember and make peace with his real life failure.


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