unfortunately scoop isn't known for its ease of install. It goes 100% smoothly for some people, and for some people its a battle. The most common problems are documented in the faq though. Don't let me scare you though :-) If you have any problems there is usually someone who can help you set stuff up in #scoop on irc.slashnet.org and our mailing list is very helpful. (scoop-help)
On to the features you need. Regarding commenting, anonymous and not, etc. No problem. Regarding the per-section moderators, thats not fully implemented. Right now the per-section permission levels control whether a specified group can read or post comments or stories. It doesn't get as fine grained as to who can edit specific stories. Though that would be a really handy feature.
Right now we have no themes for socop either. We're working on how to make that work, it pretty much involves moving over to css and xhtml. Then just changing the css definitions. That will happen later though, as there are some other big projects that take priority right now (like the ad server). That might be added eventually though, if someone implements it or I get a bit more free time.
Hope that answers your questions, if you have any trouble installing, don't hesitate to ask everyone in #scoop or mail the scoop-help list with your questions. It should go pretty smoothly.
-hurstdog
