I would argue that it's not the moderation of the forum that's the issue, because while this forum is quite heavily/strictly moderated compared to most, it has always been this way.The pre moderating of all posts had killed gd.
The issue is IMO how inconsistent the moderation has become, I.E a discussion can be going for hours/days and even have mods taking part without issue then another mod will come along and nuke half the thread just because he doesn't personally find it interesting or within his personal definition of on-topic. This is obviously quite annoying to people who have been contributing to a quality discussion. Don't get me wrong either moderation has never been perfectly consistent, favouritism was always shown to some posters and others treated overly harsh, but these days it seems more than ever like the mods are all working from different rulebooks.