The raw unmanipulated imagery is not very useful, as it will be a messy patchwork. The colours are probably interpolated from a Bayer filter mosaic or something too. They are providing the much more useful aligned, equalised imagery that people actually want. LINZ would quite likely give you the raw imagery if you asked for it for some project - they're quite keen for people to make use of their data (hence the CC license), and I have a little.

"Conspiracy nut" is a noun, slang for "conspiracy theorist". If I had said they or you were "nuts", the adjective, then yes, that would mean "crazy" and imply comparison to mental illness; I didn't say that. I also said "it sounds like you've been listening to ...", so not a comparison to your mental state anyway.