Of course, lots of people say moderated posts are the sign of a scam so cant win there

I think not a lot. I watch now one moderated thread with IPO (about 100 pages, IPO was very popular), and only about 3 people asked about this from topic start.
Another example is the Blackcoin non-moderated thread (over 1000 pages), there all quarreled and created two self-moderated thread.