Check Follow Forum Moderation Rules in Forum Permissions > select the usergroup in the forum also. Maybe you have set them to be moderated in each forum.

Just checked and they are set differently, as above.

I've created a "tester" ID who is currently set with Registered Member as primary, Trusted Member as secondary. Is that correct?

Do you have Allow Users to have Member Groups set to Yes in the Registered Members group? But, to be honest, I'm not sure what happens if the primary group is set to be moderated and the secondary group is set to not be. The way I've done it is to have Trusted Member as a Primary group.

I tried allowing Member Groups, not allowing them; every combination I could think of. Nothing worked. Our forums are fully moderated. We're looking for a way to reward good members and also take a load off our Moderation Team.

Any other suggestions?

The way I have my board set up is I changed the name of the Registered Users group to Registered Users - Moderated. I then copied that usergroup, with all usergroup permissions and forum permissions to a new group called Registered Users. So, the only difference between the two groups is that one is moderated, the other isn't. I then set a Promotion up to move users from Registered Users - Moderated to Registered Users after x posts and y days.