The lack of public debate is because of discord. Most conversation and discussion is being outsourced there at the expense of the AFE board.
I don’t buy it, even in Discord it’s just 95% drama that’s only tangentially related. What is broken is a lack of narration and side elements used to keep this game fun, engaging, and informative.
Most old forum activity in the game was precisely that, tangentially related drama. An active game engine would have absolutely no affect whatsoever in activity either on the forum or on Discord.