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As a DM and a player, I've always been in favor of more theatrical and realistic style of play.
I want the characters to have realistic personalities and describe their actions in combat.
So how do I encourage them to?
I had the idea of letting characters doing nonlethal or possibly weak lethal damage with combat maneuvers, and letting them do so as part of a full round action assuming they have high enough BAB.
I'm implementing both Clobbered and Death By Massive Damage Rules. Along with 3.5's Defense Roll and giving players an opportunity to get a +1-5 on their roll if the description is good.
Any other ideas?
If you're going to give fiat bonuses, it's critical that everyone is in the same page. Your +2 description might be worthy of a +4 in that player's head.
If you want players to get into Role-Playing and description more, your best bet is to say "this is the kind of game I want to run." They'll either go for it, or they won't.
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Run the kind of game where the players feel both encouraged and incentivized to play the kind of game you're looking for. And lead by example. If you want them to use combat maneuvers more, throw a few critters at them that can show them how nasty a maneuver can be.
If you want a module that will encourage combat maneuvers and give great examples of how effective they can be, check out The Ruby Phoenix Tournament.
Also, try dropping loot that fits your party's basic profiencies but encourages unique combat, things like the Double Chicken Saber, or the Shang Gou.
As a DM and a player, I've always been in favor of more theatrical and realistic style of play.
I want the characters to have realistic personalities and describe their actions in combat.
So how do I encourage them to?
How exactly do you want this? The way I interpret this, you probably want to use Dungeon World rather than Pathfinder. Pathfinder is very much what I call a "mechanics first" system: what you can do is mostly limited by what the mechanics allow you to do and how the mechanics say it works. This means everything is very clear and unambiguous once everybody knows the rules, but you're also very limited by those rules. If you want to do something else, you basically need more rules. I guess your request is a request for more rules?
Other, lighter systems (and Dungeon World seems to be the pinnacle of that) are more "imagination first": what you can do is limited by your imagination. The rules give guidance on how to resolve it, but whether it's possible at all is determined by the players and GM. The players describe what they do, rather than the mechanics they apply. And the GM describes the result, rather than the number of hitpoints lost (he probably also mentions those, but the physical result in the story is more important).
I just realized that Pathfinder has a few "imagination first" spells. Silent Image, Ghost Sound, in fact many illusions that don't really specify their effect very well.
I think mcv has a good point.
My suggestion within a rules-heavy system is to make sure you incentivise what you want to happen. If you want to make showy maneuvers worthwhile to them, make sure they're mechanically advantageous. It's a rare player who will choose an option which is numerically poorer.
If swinging from a chandelier and swinging at the baddies on the way past requires an acrobatics check, risks harm and doesnt grant a bonus to hit or damage - nobody's going to do it. They'll just five foot step to the nearest opponent and full attack.