"More moderate than none"
does not make it moderate. That is like saying "eating 100 calories a day is more healthful than eating 0 calories a day!"
That doesn't make it healthy to eat 100 calories a day. When you are using as an index literally one of the most extreme values you can (because negative publication is, thankfully, not possible.)
This is the "
fallacy of relative privation." Just because something is more moderate than the worst possible case, and less immoderate than an antithetical extreme, does not actually make it moderate.