I was involved with the current design. The developer was not that experienced and, as best as I could tell, was a one man team. Issues like including imagines, easy quoting of previous posts and being able to name external links were discussed but he was not interested in implementing them. I got the impression he had limited time to do the new site and, as I said, did not have a lot of experience with the site.
After this version of the site was released, there were some who left in a huff and usage fell off for a while. But, it picked up again and is pretty healthy these days. Why is it healthy? As many have said, it is because of the people on the forum and the knowledge they bring. Yes the mechanics could be improved, but it is the people that count.
The current format was implemented in 2015. Here is a link to a post on the likes and dislikes.
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/new-format-dislikeAnd one that is a little more direct
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/new-forum-format-sucks