[cnaeotnh34nh]

I'm a top 2% rep user as well and I couldn't agree less.

First, it's not that they "gave those mods carte-blanche to enforce their way of viewing the site." Any user can either vote to close a post if they think it's off-topic, or they can flag to let a mod know it should be closed if they have low-rep. So what you're seeing really is the entire community deciding on what goes on. Furthermore, mods are elected, so you could choose to run as a mod if you want to change it, or you could at least vote and canvas for mods who you think "get it".

Second, I think I've seen enough low-quality posts to understand why the rules are the way they are, and I think they make perfect sense. I personally really like how it works. I agree there are users who are sometimes rude to new users and I think more should be done to address that. However, I don't think the rules should be changed. I think the user interface could make it easier to understand the rules.

(BTW, the rules on this particular forum are hilariously anti-new-user. You can't use all caps to emphasize a word? That's a fairly well agreed-upon standard on literally ever other site in the world, but new users are shouted down when they dare do something like that here.)

[Quarrelsome]

at the time where the mods began to gain power there was a groupthink, a culture and no election since has been able to shift that default. I don't like how the rules work but because I don't share the groupthink nobody cares. IIRC Whenever I tried to express these views on meta I got downvoted because "people are just blowing off steam, its a different culture here from SO".

It was ugly, I hated it. It felt like I was 13 years old again.