I guess it depends on the type of users that a forum attracts, but I don’t suspend users unless it’s permanent. If someone misbehaves, they get a message from me explaining the problem. If they keep doing it or disrespect the admins after that point, they get permanently suspended or deleted.
I don’t give anyone moderator permissions. There are a couple of people with the title “moderator” that have TL4, but I don’t want people who I haven’t met in person and/or don’t have legal contracts with to have access to users’ private messages. Too many things can go wrong, like what you mentioned with “mod was leaking staff discussions in PDFs”.
What is “image Perma”?