Enforce Attribute Decoration of Classes/Methods

You can write an FxCop rule or even check for the attributes by calling GetType() in the base class's constructor and reflecting over the returned type.

I'd write a unit/integration test that verifies that any class matching some given criteria (ie subclassing X) is decorated appropriately. If you set up your build to run with tests, you can have the build fail when this test fails.

UPDATE: You said, "Looks like I will just have to roll my sleeves up and make sure that the unit tests are collectively maintained" - you don't have to. Just write a general test class that uses reflection to find all classes that needs to be asserted. Something like this:

[TestClass]
public class When_type_inherits_MyObject
{
    private readonly List<Type> _types = new List<Type>();

    public When_type_inherits_MyObject()
    {
        // lets find all types that inherit from MyObject, directly or indirectly
        foreach(Type type in typeof(MyObject).Assembly.GetTypes())
        {
            if(type.IsClass && typeof(MyObject).IsAssignableFrom(type))
            {
                _types.Add(type);
            }
        }
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void Properties_have_XmlElement_attribute
    {
        foreach(Type type in _types)
        {
            foreach(PropertyInfo property in type.GetProperties())
            {
                object[] attribs = property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(XmlElementAttribute), false);
                Assert.IsTrue(attribs.Count > 0, "Missing XmlElementAttribute on property " + property.Name + " in type " + type.FullName);
            }
        }
    }
}

You can write unit tests to check for this kind of thing - it basically uses reflection.

Given the fact this is possible I guess it would also be possible to write a FxCop rule, but I've never done such a thing.