Not all trackers have opposed trading, indeed (see
https://web.archive.org/web/20100811...hates-trading/). Personally, I've always been of the opinion that the "security risk" rationale to disallow it is greatly exaggerated and never saw a problem with it, as long as both parties involved are genuinely interested on what they're trading for (see
https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=3336460); account trades, giveaways or sharing can also be okay depending on circumstances (see
http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=21339 and
http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?t=24222). If trading was seen as more acceptable in the past, it was likely and simply because these good traders (so to speak) outnumbered rarity seekers and sellers looking for merchandise.
FST allowed tracker staff to become official community reps on the forum and disallow account (but not invite) trades for the sites they belonged to. However, said rank was relatively short-lived (see
https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=278399) and the relationship between both fell apart from 2008 onwards, as we discussed above.
The anti-trader thing was as stupid as it sounds. Sticking a label on yourself so that it was really clear that you were a
good,
trustworthy guy who deserved to be invited everywhere "for the community". Not surprisingly, some of those "anti-traders" were just pretending to be nice at all costs to get what they wanted, were collectors, actually traded in secret with dupe accounts, or a combination of the three. The premise of forums run entirely around the concept of obtaining tracker invites was not healthy, and led to this sort of behavior (see
http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?p=350819).