What you are missing Anon is that the servers where the IP 'works' could quite easily be a clown server designed to gather addresses.
When you can use DNS, you at least are assured that the server you contact is actually registered to the URL you want to reach.
If you edit hosts you are manually saying if you see this URL… contact this address.
Use VPN to hide your originating IP address if you intend to use the hosts edit method.
In fact always use VPN to contact boards like this. It isn't guaranteed anonymity but it makes it a bit more of a pain to track you.