So the big suggestion here is to not allow self-moderated threads. I wouldn't be opposed to that, since they bring far more benefit to scammers than to ordinary members--but scams aren't even moderated on bitcointalk, so I highly doubt Theymos is going to do away with that feature. It's better to just be on guard for bullshit.
Only disable self-moderation for scammers if they have a high negative trust score - this needs to be confirmed by several DT-Members (with red trust), so we have a sufficient proof that it is a real scammer abusing this function in his thread to delete comments pointing out his project is a scam.
But you're right it is unlikely there will be a change - it's implemention might be difficult.
If I may make a suggestion: Get to the point with threads like this. The part of your post I quoted is your idea, and the rest of your post is kind of just fluff. There are many of us with attention span disorders, and we love posts that get straight to the point.
I tried to point out, why I had this idea and give an example for an abuse of self-moderation. I can imagine you have to read a lot here, especially lots of bullshit posts, so I will try to get straight to my point the next time. The same as in my original post could have been said in less words, that's true.
Personally I think self-moderation is a very good function, if you are creating an interesting topic and it gets flooded instantly by bullshit spam comments. I have already an idea of a new topic where a self-moderation could be very helpful - stay tuned! But the abuse of self-moderation is exactly the other side: giving scammers a tool to erase comments pointing out this scam.
I really appreciate the positive sides, the last thing I want here is censorship. But we all know about the members misleading users and their intention to scam others.
So finally we can say: there are two sides of the same
coin.