I began visiting this forum a few months ago, and since I have been here I have been baffled by the proliferation of banking and security scams and frauds. Every "business" I have looked at has been nothing more than a poorly hidden scheme to seperate fools from their money.
So, why do you think scams are operated so freely here? Lack of moderation on the forum? A community to greedy to care? Is it just the anonymity and the (until recently) lack of punishment and law enforcement?
Why shouldn't the forums (and bitcoin overall) be shut down? Why shouldn't a central authority be set up to tackle the frauds that are so endemic in this community?
It's just that the community is immature. It's the same reason the "wild west" was once wild.
Sure, imposing a central authority would be one way to tackle the fraud. But it's far from clear that it's the only way.