The whole forum system is based upon the principle of a few admins being in charge. Direct democracy doesn't really work within the coding framework of any forum system. Sure, you could have polls upon all decisions made within the forum, but that would still require a "puppet admin" that would carry these things out. Also, this principle is fine for the larger decisions but having a poll for every tiny little action that mods and admins carry out (the Admin CP keeps a log, every mod/admin here has logged up hundreds) is completely impractical.
Also, who would start the polls? Leaving it to the admins would still give them power (they could not create polls for things they don't want), allowing everyone to make them would just result in lots of threads voting to ban various members. In any case, the system is open to abuse by peopel creating multiple accounts in order to vote (entirely possible if a big issue such as the banning of a member comes up for vote).
While it would be possible to make large decisions by referendum, it is impossible to avoid the focusing of power in the hands of a few in a forum enviroment. And like David said, many knee-jerk, reactionary decisions would pass if this system were put in place.
Direct democray is a noble principle, but the fact is that forums, as they stand, are inherently hierarchical.
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