You must not be a heavy user of reddit. Nearly the entire site is compromised, both by mods and admins. And even without that, subreddits are created and defined by users, and thus free to set whatever explicit and implicit rules they wish.
A lot is from rumors but since around the time they moved all the staff to SF, users 'reported' many of the "high-profile" AMAs to be paid. There was also a lot of speculation of vote manipulation by mods/admins. I didn't dig too deep so the above was mostly speculation (not from me).
Makes me wonder what other communities are oblivious to moderators influence.