This is fascinating. I'd never though of moderators as required power users, but that's exactly what they are. To be honest I hadn't thought much at all about reddit's structure until recently. Having said that, you are angry about this. You sound furious, and I only partially understand why. I assume you've been a mod on Reddit, and obviously your involvement in it and passion for these kinds of sites fuels that anger, but I really wanna know what it's directed towards. You tend to be right (by which I mean I tend to agree with your points) but I'm never particularly upset by them.
Separating the world into "us" and "them" allows "us" to do terrible things to "them" with a clear conscience. On Reddit, "They" are the ones who keep things running for the benefit of "us." And because that line goes uncontested, "us" doing horrible things to "them" is a spectator sport. I once told someone that his post did not abide by the rules of a subreddit devoted to "favors". My mistake was I did so impolitely. I couldn't say anything without a hundred downvotes and dozens of hatemail PMs for several weeks. All in good fun, though, right? I mean, why would I bother establishing a subreddit devoted to helping people out if I didn't want to be called a niggerfag jewcunt by every knuckle-dragger on the Internet for refusing someone the option to ask for several hundred dollars' worth of design work for free? Particularly when a few of the designers in that subreddit were homeless so what did they stand to lose?
I see what you mean- if you're doing something which is mildly unpopular on a place where you can't ignore people and there's 0 cost to communicate then when the community grows so does the absolute number of people who hate you. That is an extremely reasonable concern, especially considering your popularity on both sites. Have you had any trouble like that on Hubski? I know that you and mk don't agree on everything, but it doesn't seem much like he's ruining your experience of the site on a daily basis.
Alright. I'm glad I'm following you. You're pretty on top of things.