I've seen a lot of mod abuse on Reddit over the years, but would argue that there is perhaps a sweet spot where a sub can be a good size and not have abusive mods. Depends on the subject. /r/Politics has been severely limited by having too many rules, and thus it's potential to address politics appropriatley, with a variety of media and users, has made it an MSM page. Saidit is so much better than this because of the lack of restrictions. So, Politics is partially ruined because it has had difficulty dealing with bad content. This would support your argument about the problems with larger subs. That said, Saidit still needs more users, and shouldn't be in danger of reaching 8 million subscribers, 31k of which are online right now. Sorry that's a gross comparison.