Heh, I actually was similarly surprised when Tex brought up the moderation issue in this discussion. I thought the moderation in this forum has struck a great balance between forum administration (making threads organized, merging them as necessary, etc) and (freedom from) moderation within the discussion contents themselves.
I guess this also brings highlight to how an actively-chatting moderator can affect the direction of such discussion and blur the lines between his post as a user and his post when moderating.