I believe you are the first to speak about the elephant in the room. IMHO Doug's input in the site is waning. Probably there are good reasons for that. I also feel that the forum is slowly drifting to survivalism.
Possibly, but the moderators seem to do a reasonable job of shepherding the site. Doug is around, but he seems to believe in an old Klingon saying that goes "If you don't want it heard, don't say it....."
Or perhaps he simply doesn't have anything to say?