Things aren't nearly as black and white as 'there's either some rules or it's a police state'. I'm hoping you don't view the world that way, because even the country with the most freedom (I've no idea which that is, I'm just saying) has laws. Every single country does, and speaking now of this forum, the rules that are unofficially written down are rarely enforced except for major infractions; usually when someone is way out of line, the community is responsible for using the trust system as a corrective measure. Is it a perfect system? Oh hell no. The trust system is so broken that it'd have to be scrapped entirely and rebuilt from scratch just to make it comprehensible.
But none of us here own the forum, so we have to work within the constraints of the systems in place, right?
The rules are broken like you said, you know better and you have been here longer before many of us came so you know how it was back then, let's say like 4yrs back. If the trust system was instigated by someone and the other members got so comfortable that they feel they can break the rules and nothing will happen, and start messing it up then it can still be changed to something more brutal that when anyone forfeit and the punishment is being carried out the others would learn, but if things are like they are now I don't think there will be any changes. The rebuilding will take time but is best to start from some where before the ones that have been contained infects the others.