but it is also addressing a problem which never presented.
True, but there are two things to consider.
1. It's good to set up forums in a way that pre-empts problems, acting proactively instead of reactively.
2. I think most people (including myself, who, I think, created the board for Cola) up until now were under the impression that you can't open topics about other people, but now that people see that you can, there might be a slow build-up of shit-posting threads. Just look at the bitter rivalries between players in our applications; there, we have had to exercise our right to shut them down a bunch of times. If the people prone to those petty flamewars become aware that this is a board where they can go all-out without redress, then they probably would use it for that.
As an admin I think edit 2 is the most elegant and fitting solution, allowing people to post topics about other people, but allowing those who are the subject of the topics the right to have them locked or deleted.