Well although you kind of just went off of my post. Download the exp table. Like for house rules or whatever one wants to call them. I give a chance for anything. If a character did kill a level 40 at level 1 then why not reward him in some way so he doesn't feel shafted as a player.
Well that's fine, really, it just doesn't fit my DMing style. My apologies if I sounded overly dismissive!
I'm sure there'll be DMs who appreciate your effort.
In my games, however, I make it a point to include encounters that are not meant to be beatable, following the advice in the 3e DMG on encounter building that 5% of all encounters should have an EL of 5+ higher than EPL.
Most of the time, my players realize their characters are in over their heads and do the sensible thing: They try to flee or parley.
Sometimes, this realization will come only after one or more pcs are dead, but such is the harsh life of an adventurer!
And rarely, they misjudge (or just don't care) and try to take on the opposition anyway, usually resulting a TPK.
However, I remember one instance where they actually succeeded against all odds and to my big surprise. There were no CR involved that were more than 8 levels above their level, though. If there had been, I'd have just granted the maximum (which is already very high).
As it was, I figured the high-level loot they gained was reward enough.