but the thing is none of their policy is being actively or coherently enforced.
Yeah, many live even while not going along Patreon's rules. However, they do enforce whatever they want selectively, i.e. many of the people you find will post some lolis and will not get banned, while other person will get obliterated by Patreon's moderators for it. I dunno, is it good? Is it bad? It means that any creator can get struck in the middle of being successful and liked, while having a lot of freedom before Patreon notices them.
There is also probably a difference in moderators, maybe some are sensible/peaceful and don't attack for little reasons, and other are lapdogs that will obey everything administration says. Who knows, maybe Patreon isn't that bad, and it's just some particular people raping others with rules and having a hypocrisy stroke.