Just my opinion but some of it has to do with the fact that when a thread is started to actually get some research done about cards and/or baseball or inquiries are made about actual Pre-WW2 cards NOBODY freaking responds and the threads quickly get buried under the other stuff. The threads with drama and headache get hundreds of responses and thousands of views.
Not the biggest deal in the world but Just in the past 24-48 hours a thread was started about the 1912 Zeenut set and there were 4-5 responses or so and the thread has disappeared to the abyss of "Page 2" and will probably never be seen again. Another thread discussing our hobbies history from the 1940's got 2 responses and POOF!, gone.
A lot of the past members of this board (which I still enjoy very much) no longer post as they feel it isn't worth their time to post meaningful things just to have them be unappreciated and buried under threads about trading for a dream card (nearly 400 replies), pissing contests, posts about banned members, and other stuff that just serves to piss off other people.
I joke sometimes that feel like I personally am the "post killer" as I feel like as soon as I write a reply the thread I am responding to tends to get no more action and is gone in a matter of hours. Not sure what that means other than I may not be all that popular
