I gotta be honest, that was depressing to read. Why would he want to raise $24mm when he could just build a profitable sales machine from day one, with a Scalable and repeatable sales process? I think he should read the book _The Lean Startup_ by Eric Ries.
I think you are depressed by what you think you read, not what you actually read.
He explains their motivations quite thoroughly (talent is currently available, so for now, cash is their major bottleneck, not scouting).
They've also been in business for 30 years (founded 1981). Somehow I don't think they are ignorant of how to run a business.
There isn't a moral "right" answer for VC. Taking it isn't a weakness, and funding isn't a sign of giving up. It's a business tool like any other, and it's ridiculous to be sitting spectator to a very healthy business and condemning their choices.
It's a bit of a stretch. Their website (http://www.seomoz.org/about) lists a co-founder's traditional marketing company, founded in 1981, as an SEOmoz precursor. But Rand Fishkin, who largely drove the SEO direction that's become successful, didn't join until 1999, and SEOmoz itself was founded in 2004. So it'd make more sense imo to say it's been in business for around 10 years, though one of the co-founders had previously had 20 years' experience running a different (non-SEO) marketing company.
