Speaking only for the Support Team, we look at the reported post(s) in the context of the thread, and we may find that there are other posts that require clean-up, or that are part of a derail, for example. While planning a thread clean-up, if I find a post appears to be egregious enough for a possible warning or an infraction, I make a habit of reporting it separately so our team can discuss it in detail.
So, a deletion, RFE or staff edit might not be preceded with a report if it's part of a large clean-up. But, a warning or infraction would be preceded by a report whether it's part of a clean-up or is a stand-alone post issue.
I suspect that other teams work pretty much the same way, but I can't speak on their behalf.