I totally agree that Reddit is an old boys club. But this is how all online communities seem to work: age = power and respect. How would you solve this problem? It's been like that since newsgroups. It seems to be just a human tendency.
Imagine how Reddit would be if you could pick reasons for votes, and then, say, filter posts so you see things which were upvoted for being insightful, rather than being merely funny.
Last time I checked slashdot's submissions are controlled by its staff.
That worked great for a vertical focus. Not sure how it would work with as big of horizontal focus as reddit.
Despite a low (<6 digit) userID, I abandoned moderation a long time ago.
More recent developments have further deteriorated the site... Oddly enough, also utlimately trust-related.
And, it turns out, based on trust violations of another Dice property, SourceForge.