Current info on walking away from a timeshare

I searched the forums and read a few posts about this but most of them end with "don't do it, it will wreck your credit" and then the posts go off topic on to other things.

We purchased a biennial 2 weeks floating/240,000 points at Welk Villas in Escondido, CA and have made 2 years worth of payments on it. At the time, we could afford it, just barely and probably shouldn't have gotten sucked into signing but in the end it was us that signed it.

With layoffs and the current economy, my credit is already shot, not much better than if I had declared bankruptcy.

By my estimation, my TS is worth MAYBE $6K on the open market and we still owe $13.8K on it. I could rent it to offset the yearly maintenance fee but that doesn't solve the problem of the month finance payment.

What is the worst case scenario if we stopped paying our TS mortgage payment and maintenance fees? At some point wouldn't the collection agency give up and the Resort take it back (even if it took 6 months or a year of them hounding us)? With an auto-loan, if you stop paying, the repo man comes and takes the car away. Why wouldn't the TS eventually take the deed back?

Is there any other legal action they can take for non-payment other than destroying your credit rating?

Can I Quit Claim deed it back to them even if it's not paid off? then they would technically own it, but I would still be on the hook for the financed money?

I am really at a loss.