Lol, i should check how it's going now. the last time i played it was one of the best places for poker (few month ago).
traffic has died down some. rake has gone up. i still love their software and i appreciate what they do for our forum series. i'm just not thrilled about the direction things have taken over the past few months.
indeed, this is one of the things that suggests an ownership change to me. so much belt tightening, hiking rake, etc and absolutely nothing to draw in new players. they are obviously trying to squeeze out profitability on a small scale rather than trying to invest and grow their user base. 
If it so, when do you think it happened? i would say around july or so. they cleaned up their moderated thread on bitcointalk but the 2+2 thread has kept a good record of when/how things have changed for the worse: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=56314728&postcount=1820