I agree that the early forum was very different to the way it was now. It was very development focused from every angle. A huge amount of enthusiasm and innovation happened then.

It still happens but it is harder to find - between the regurgitated topics, bounty, ann and other spam topics.

It is progress...  

But that is the nature of "mass adoption" of crypto. We are in the manic phase.

On some of the exchanges I trade we were chatting to the owner developers on an almost daily basis - just daily gossip. Two years later I can hardly get an email back from them because they are swamped with work. All development work is now handled by their many staff.

Developers have retreated because it is hard to deal with "the masses" of uninformed people riding the crypto mania wave. They have retreated to other methods of communication to extend their development work.