I have never been banned nor even received a warning on anything and I have engaged in many of the more heated discussions on these forums, although I knew better than to engage in obvious troll threads and flame wars.

You can voice your dissenting opinion and have meaningful discussions without repercussion as long as you do so respectfully. Its not so much what you say, its how you say it. If you want to converse with others and not piss people off and get reported/banned/etc., leave your ego and attitude out of it. If you make nasty, insulting or demeaning responses or remarks to people on the forums, you're likely to rub someone the wrong way and that can lead to being reported and potentially banned. I myself have only reported someone once in the entirety of my times on the forums and that was for making a slew of racist remarks in a thread and completely derailing the discussion and then refusing to stop.

If you are constantly getting "regulated" on the forums, maybe you should take a look at your own conduct and not just try to point the finger elsewhere.

I agree that they should remove the character limit after you have reached a specific "rank (based on the stars)" for posting though. It can be a pain when posting from a phone.