Not really sure what's going on with Paul and the cigar passes. At this point I'm not judging, just hoping he's being honest with us.
I too was cautious about starting my own pass for the same reason. Is there a way to add a rate user feature based on private trades or successful/timely completion of passes? Likewise, can there be a Private Trade feature that links a trade between users? That might give some users a better reputation and prevent abuse of the feature. Likewise, box-pass moderators could use it to judge whether someone is a good candidate for their cigar pass. Just a thought.