I intended to bring a similar thread for a while.
Bitcointalk was supposed to be a place where we could talk about Bitcoin but in recent days the activity related to Bitcoin and development has decreased a lot and people started creating/discussing drama against one another and not sure how many percentage of merits shared in the main board if we exclude the WO/Push up and reputation threads, I bet the numbers on these few will surpass the whole discussion board.
To be honest, I think aside this fact another reason is from the fact that the Beginners & help board are now having many series of identical posts, that is they are speaking the same thing while others are relatively low quality. Merit distribution there has definitely be lower now but I think it's also about the quality of post that may have shifted merit sources away from there.
Local boards are abused by account farmers even their board users exposed many of them and still lot of them popping and becoming better in covering their traces.
This is true but the ironic truth is that they just don't farm accounts only on their Lb, they still move outside with time, we have seen scenarios like that. You have been on the forum for some years and I do say you are a pretty all around the forum, and I think you have also noticed these aspects.