Lets not overblow this thing into a bigger problem that it actually was. There have been some rows recently, but they're sorted more or less. It's natural that there will be disagreements. The mods are trying to find a happy medium, show that there are rules and that they should be followed but also use commonsense and humanity when it's required. They're also humans, they're not robots to blindly impose the forum's rules.
That's how I see the whole situation. ( and no, that's not lip service of any kind
)