Most of the subreddits were already having moderator staffing issues and were very much understaffed with no one wanting to do it...
Couple that with the shit show moderating the site will be with only official tools and I think this idea that the admins can just boot all the mods and snap their fingers with all news mods is a bit fantastical
Furthermore, the people most pissed off at Reddit aren't just the moderators, it's also a lot of the power users who post the vast majority of the content. So Reddit would have to hire a bunch of scab "power users" to post content. And a lot of subreddits are based on original content, not news links, so real power users won't be so easy to replace.
I think the feeling at Reddit HQ is that as long as there isn't someplace else for the users to go they will be alright. I mean where else are you going to get a Reddit like experience? Digg? Tumblr? Livejournal? Slashdot? Twitter? Usenet?!? Nothing really compares to Reddit. Personally, I wouldn't feel too confident. I saw how fast Digg and Tumblr collapsed. Even if you don't know the name of the next big thing, it is probably out there already.
