I think its a must-have. I think the administrator(s) have every right to know more about a guest if they so choose. On some forums, ours being one of them, its absolutley necessary to be able to get information about your guests, in order to keep out unwanted ones.
Agreed. We have to maintain order on the forums so that we don't get trouble making individuals hiding under different identities. IMO, forums (like TWCMB) that have admins that don't seem to care about the trouble makers are a big turnoff from joining the board because the board is not being run as well as a forum should. 
Yep. I've seen forums that have been over-run by spam bots and trolls, and there are no admins anywhere in sight. That is indeed a big turn-off for joining any forum. I wouldn't join that kind of forum.
We need to keep these forums free of trolls and such, and I feel that Gary and Stephen have done a great job administrating these forums so far.