That is how all forums are, everywhere. You start to realize this once you've been on more than a few. It's inevitable that the mods become full of themselves, elitist cliques form among the regulars, and the level of discourse simply can't survive that. It's best not to bother but if it's the only way to voice your opinions to the devs I guess it has to be.
Just don't let yourself be dragged in.
I guess for dev studios it's easy to set up, and easy to think about because everyone else is doing it. And you can hire a community manager to talk to people so your inbox doesn't get flooded. But it's not a good way to get feedback, and I hope they disregard every word that is written on here. People like Braben are probably vets of the BBS days, where small pioneering communities on the internet worked well. But times have changed, the internet is much different. Now, summer never ends.
