Suppose you submit a paper and it is rejected with no suggestion of resubmission, but there is substantial feedback. Do you fix up the paper, based on the feedback and resubmit? Or fix it up and submit to another journal? What heuristic do people use, if any? Or is every case different?
I had a bad experience a few years ago. Short short version follows. Paper rejected after 1 yr. Fixed it up, resubmitted. Major revision decision after 6 months. Fixed up, resubmitted. Rejected again after another 6 months. This literally went on for years, and was quite, quite horrible. The original draft was in pretty bad shape, in hindsight, which partly explains it, and I'm more experienced now. I guess it was one of those character building experiences.
However, I'm wondering if on balance, if the journal doesn't want it, whether it is better to cut your losses and move on?
I hope this is not too subjective a question. Granted, any answers will be purely opinion-based, but that seems to be the case with many questions here.
EDIT: For the record, I'm leaning in the direction of submission to another journal if initially rejected without the suggestion of resubmission. If the journal suggests resubmission, I suppose it is a more ambiguous situation.