One thing that you didn't point out about how weird it is at slashdot lately is the mods. Man, what the shit? People get mod points and just seem to go silly-willy. I suspect that some folks just get on their hate-wagon, and seek out certain people's comments, and regardless of what they say, they mod them down, purely based on the screen name.
I can't speak for anyone else, but this actually used to happen to me a lot "back in the day", and obviously as well; the mods would simply apply to five consecutive comments, many of which had nothing wrong with them. Then I'd post the list of URLs to my journal, and often some of my fans would help me out with some cancelling, corrective positive moderation. Thanks, fans! Lately there's been a lot less of that. It's happened maybe twice in two years that I can recall, it used to happen every couple months or more.
I kind of wish they'd do away with AC, or only allow moderation privileges to certain folks. But both of those are shitty ideas.
How about a word filter for ACs? Treat them like the children they're acting like. After all, it's trivial to acquire a slashdot account, which need not be tied to an actual identity.