But with that right comes a responsibility - you have to justify that bonus score. The louder you speak, the more likely you are to be moderated down, unless you're sufficiently interesting to prompt the moderators to let you keep your bonus score. I just got moderator access. When you are done, hit the 'Moderate' button. You used up your moderator points.
Moderation is like jury duty.
You never know when you're gonna have to do it, and when you get it, you only do it for a little bit. Once those points are gone, you're done. It's a good question. Moderators' primary complaint is that they are often crippled by the tiny amount of points they have, and the overwhelming amount of comments that need moderation. If a good moderator could moderate all the comments in a given story, certainly that would be a great improvement.