Hi Adam,
Welcome to the forums. I'm afraid the mods are only doing their job. They are trying to keep down the amount of the same topics. They do not mean to cause confusion and close the topics to avoid just that. They are very right in suggesting to use the search function as many people seem to forget using this feature.
I'm afraid it's not the mods that are causing the problem, just people being lazy and not looking properly and posting the same questions over and over.