Sorry, but any self-moderated forum is going to have content you don't like and lack content you like. That subreddit has the community's self-moderation, which scales, and moderators who don't. The moderators' aren't going to spend their day making judgment calls, they write clear rules[0] and let things take their course. “Must be peer-reviewed research” is pretty clear cut and the signal to noise is better than without it. Who cares if it's too strict; you have other subreddits.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_submission_...