Sorry Yooper, but there is a difference. Many of us have dealt with TheChiCompany through his own posts. While I haven't purchased anything from him, I have had experiences with him through here. Those experiences were bad enough that I refuse to buy anything from him.
While HBT may not be trying to protect vendors, this forum is not able to be self regulating. Other forum's members will "out" bad vendors, while HBT doesn't allow any negative feedback, except in this section. Some of the other forums also ban bad vendors or don't allow them to re-up. At the least, they allow negative feedback to remain as long as it's still somewhat on topic of the thread (example: the conical fiasco was totally on topic, but it was negative, so deleted).
I'm not saying HBT is wrong or should change. I am only saying that members on here should never think of "HBT Vendor" status as an endorsement. We the customer just need to keep in mind that any vendor on HBT should be treated like a guy selling out of the back of a van until some personal research is done. Fortunately, finding good vendors on here is usually just a search away. That said, this personal research is very difficult when moderators/adminstrators start deleting potentially damaging posts, even if they are made by the vendor himself. Really, the only people hurt by this are the good vendors and the forum members.