The heart of the matter is . . . how does one deal with conflicts of interest?
While I do have a pretty significant financial ties to the AV industry, I wish to participate on Audiogon as an individual, NOT as a representative of a company. Which in my book means that I simply do not comment, in any way, on products or services that would affect my financial interests. One of the reasons I like Audiogon is that there's not much overlap, so it's pretty easy.
In the end . . . a forum is simply a place for people to exchange comments - you must ALWAYS carefully consider the source. An Audiogon equivalent of "all insider-stock-traders must register with the SEC" of course won't make any difference . . .