No idea if that model would actually work, as the app itself was one of those cool-on-paper-but-not-in-reality P2P types which made everything slow and likely made it rough attracting users.
I would be fine occasionally contributing some moderation to a community I am an active member of. I find I already have to do some of that on my workplace Slack when people get aggressive with the @here tag reaching the entire company when they really want one of 5 people.
Meta-moderating consisted of being shown a single comment and how an unknown moderator scored it. If enough meta-moderators disagreed with how a moderator was scoring, then that moderator would eventually lose all their moderation points.
Those that meta-moderate would slowly gain points they could use to moderate (no one had unlimited moderation points)
Granted, slashdot was different in that it only applied to comments. Post on the front page were done by slashdot employees. Reddit would still need a different level of moderators to remove inappropriate posts all together.
The old classic saying is "Anyone that wants to be a politician is not someone you want as a politician"
Well that is true for reddit mods as well, people that like to moderate subreddits are drawn to the action because they like to have power over the others, this is generally not someone you want in charge of anything