I have a very different view of the evolution of Sosh, from the point of view of someone who's been around since '03 (joined '05). I think Sosh has grown so much more enlightened, especially with regard to how members refer to women, that it actually blows my mind. And I am grateful. Perhaps my "more enlightened" is someone else's "too long a leash," I don't know.
The board is much more socially enlightened, and I am grateful for that as well.
I'm not going to get into whether the quality of discussion here (baseball or otherwise) is better or worse than that era, because it's unquantifiable, and also because there've always been similar concerns raised here: when SoSH left ezBoard behind (c. 2005) there was a great reckoning that the site had gone downhill from the Good Old Days of 2001.
But I will say this: the significant bloc of posters from that era who became friends in real life were just that... we've been to each others' weddings, kids' birthdays, mourned with them at funerals, we've even buried a few SoSHers, sadly. The Bash forum was once rife with random meetups between folks here, anytime there was a big Sox game or if someone was visiting another town, you could be certain there would be a thread about it and tales to be told the next day. And new posters kept getting added to the mix, usually through Cheri's annual Sox Game Bash; it was always great to welcome a new face into the family. We'd raise tens of thousands of dollars each year for The Jimmy Fund, or for ALS research/awareness, or for a mobile clinic/truck to fight AIDS in Africa.
Sometime around 2010, that dynamic began to slow, in the sense that there was no new blood that seemed interested in actually meeting people or becoming "real life" friends. Membership exploded, but the family grew no larger. Most of the newer folks seemed content to use the board as a dumping ground for their thoughts, but no interest in anything beyond that (I'm fully prepared to admit the reason for that is because The Old Guard are a bunch of cranky assholes). Charitable drives stalled. The original crew remains friends to this day, and we still see each other, but we're so embedded in each other's lives that our interaction is no longer dependent on this board; we simply text, call, meet up in person, or yes, use FB to keep in touch.
A lot of those old-timers don't post here anymore: life gets in the way. Kids, maybe a new job that blocks SoSH (or takes too much time/attention to allow for surfing here), a new relationship/significant other, or maybe *gasp* baseball and the Red Sox don't seem so important anymore, especially after the embarrassment of WS riches we've experienced the past 17 years. Different priorities. But we've still got each other.