"The interesting thing is the inconsistency. Occasionally, I will have a post rejected"
I've experimented with this. Certainly under the old system it completely depended on what moderators were on duty. The night shift seemed more open minded. 
Under the new system if you survive moderation by posters you still have to deal with moderation by moderators. And if you are on the naughty list, and the article is in "hot" subjects, then your comments get held usually for 6-8 hours before approval, effectively taking you out of the discourse. Unlike poster handled moderation when staff moderators take your comment out there is no sign to other posters that it ever existed. I call this "being disappeared."