The persistence of posts hidden by flags are a bane to our community

[orenwolf (Ken Snider)]

@John_Lehmann

And the problem was discovered because we had several user replying to the original hidden post debating about whether it should have been hidden.

Precisely this. We long ago moved to deleting posts (and replies) that are moderated, because otherwise those hidden posts are invariably a new derail on the topic otherwise.