They are an important part of boards like this, yes.
The moderator reports are useful, though, I have to admit. I'm not about to moderate anything and I'm pretty sure parts, Ren and Callaway all feel the same, but sometimes someone does something that is against Hostgator's TOS.
Or big red lettering where the only objective is to make the board unreadable for everyone else, in which case I tend to remove the content. The hardcore free speech fans will object, but frankly I don't care.