Let me know when you read the post.
I don't see which part of your post(s) answers my question so I'm gonna have to guess. The signed agreement idea? It seems to ensure that a scammy trade gets max one neg so a crafty scammer can probably scam quite a few newbies before getting significant negative feedback. Or the scammer can coerce their victim to opt out. So who's going to enforce all that and how?
Nothing stopping everyone from leaving neutrals or making scam accusation posts. Again, if you are teaching users to due SIMPLE due diligence (like reading a trust rating page), this is not an issue. What you want is pretty numbers that everyone is taught to blindly trust. The trust rating should be a QUICK REFERENCE at most, not a rule by which to judge some one trustworthy. At the end of the day the trust becomes BENEFICIAL for thieves if the standard is the trust rating should just be followed blindly. This way they can PERPETUALLY just buy burner accounts and no one ever gives it a second thought. IMO the only reason this wasn't done long ago is complaints from obsessive self proclaimed scambusters who have no other way to raise their public image here than to search for people to harass to give the impression they are fighting fraud. THIS is the primary problem of the trust system and THIS is what needs to end.
I don't think it's quite that easy. There's plenty of people who have a bad trust rating here yet they are still able to do business without much of an issue. I'm not sure the change you are proposing would have any real effect.
As for the self proclaimed scambusters, I appreciate their work around here. It helps me when I'm managing signature campaigns and looking for users to enroll. Blindly following the DT is not really an issue IMO. The only people you see complain are mostly the ones that have actually been caught with doing something bad..