If there were no mods with decisive power and it was completely up to be controlled by the common population (including people who sign up with multiple accounts), how does that help? How does multiplying the amount of people with power make it less annoying to fight an issue?
Reputation thresholds minimize this problem to begin with. Any remaining problem could be largely eradicated by focusing enforcement efforts on those people instead of exercising hypocritical control over what content the community is permitted to deem worthy.
It would be interesting to see exactly what number of the community actually wants discussion posts and how many don't. Currently it is the community that votes to put a post "On Hold" before a mod comes around and verifies that it is a legit post that should be "closed." It is brought to their attention by the community who do not want it there. (And not just high rep members of the community.)
