There isn't a loss. There is nothing wrong with adding some sass to the comment if the moderator hat comes off. It'd be unreasonable to expect him to turn a blind eye to a situation where he has more at stake and better information than 80% of the comments.

Dan's opinion is only different from the average HN commentor because it leads to people being banned. As long as there is a careful separation of personal opinion from an official moderator view there isn't anything to take note of from one personal opinion.