Trust and trustless here, as I meant it, is in the context of transactions, not anonymity.
Trustless transactions = Satoshi's model.
Trusted transactions = the normal mode of 3rd party that is trusted to not tamper the transaction / run away with the money etc.
Anonymity is another issue altogether. XC is fundamentally flawed at the transaction level. The fact that its anonymity is broken is secondary.
Yeah but there is so much more to 'trust' then just the transactions when it comes to anonymity so I segued into that. Phos isn't wrong, and neither are you.
A monetary system that can't be trusted for its primary function (movement of money) is inherently problematic.
The anonymity part for DRK and the trust issue is more like percentages. If you DarkSend the money 5 times, and a bad actor controls like 30% of the network, it's like 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.3 x 0.3 = 0.25% => 99.75% that he'll miss the money flow. You play with probabilities. As you do when you use an IP obfuscation network that might reveal you anyway, whether you use DRK, or MRO.