Okay - here is my opinion on this whole situation. As many people have said, it is okay to "mini-mod" as long as you don't go as far as actually pretending to be a mod but rather just help out the community by doing so. Things such as saying "Hey, you might wanna stop in case you get punished" is fine but when you start getting like "Ok hey I'm going to ban you", not only is that impersonating a staff member, that is also where "mini-modding" gets to the breaking point.
Referring back to the original post which started this thread, just because they said that they're in pending and they're doing this, doesn't mean they could fail their interview. I see where this comes from but at the end of the day, it is helping out the community which is what they're trying to achieve. I personally would not call them "mod tryharders". Also, I'd beg to differ regarding your thing about "MCGamer having no free speech". If we didn't give you guys free speech, why do we have forums? Why do we have a TeamSpeak? Yes, we "heavily" moderate both of these platforms but that is for the good of the community. If we did not moderate each platform equally, it'd be a nightmare with flame and trolling everywhere.
Moving onto the idea of "croe boosting". While this is your own opinion which I don't mind you sharing, he has already got enough hate for so-called "boosting". While the evidence against him makes it seem like he is boosting with Vanessa, doesn't mean he actually is intentionally. If he was actually boosting, he'd of been punished long ago. As I said, you're entitled to your own opinion & I'm fine with that but it gets to a point where it just breaks down. If the higher staff (in Croe's case, the administrative staff) want to do anything regarding him "boosting", then they will.
Finally, the moderators being strict? No. Just no. We're not strict unless there is a reason to. Now, me personally, I have no idea which thread of yours got deleted but we'd of only deleted if there was a reason for it and even if it was a joke, we still have to do something about it if it was breaking a rule or had the potential to start flame or cause trolling. If you feel as if we're being too strict and want to report us, go ahead with evidence to the Senior Staff and they'll deal with it appropriately.
At the end of the day, I understand these are your own opinions but as I've said countless times in this post, there is a point where it just breaks down. All I'd say take from this is: think before you do.