There have always been bad posters and retarded ideas tossed around. Now the scales might be getting tipped, but there's still occasionally some good conversations to read here.

I do not know where the missing good posters went. Perhaps they started families or just took their ideas to private forums. It's not a problem as long as we can attract or generate some replacements.

If you're looking for a new place for spicy intellectualism, I can't help much. Maybe try r/themotte, if you can stomach some of their bizarre traditions and obsessively dense verbiage.