They absolutely are. You ever done any work fighting spam? It's all about making it hard and expensive enough for spam to land that it's no longer economically viable - you den't and can't actually stop all spam. Same thing here.
Sure, the bad actors don't particularly care for the guidelines - until their accounts start losing karma and getting dead'd/banned. Then they do, and that still materially improves the site.
Sure, the bad actors don't particularly care for the guidelines - until their accounts start losing karma and getting dead'd/banned. Then they do, and that still materially improves the site.