My understanding is that a rules-first approach to moderation was tried via an RFC, agreement couldn’t be reached, so instead we have a moderation team that makes decisions based on their best judgment. As has been stated ad nauseam, if an RFC ever manages to establish rules that the community agrees on, the moderation team agrees to abide by them. Until and unless that happens, it’s completely absurd to say that the mod team can only ask people to do things based on the empty set of rules the community has agreed on.
Have you, or anyone else with this concern about what appears to be, reached out to the mods in any of the channels they have specified for raising concerns—as opposed to trying to start a public mud fight—and simply asked why the mods asked Srid to remove his cover image?