Yeah it also reduced the amount of pages the main thread was getting, which was my main problem with the thread way back when. There would be drama, people would react and discuss it for like half a day... and then a bunch of lurkers or less active users would keep making reactionary posts for like a week about it and the discourse would never end, but it would also never go anywhere beyond "THIS IS SO RETARDED WTF?!"
The whole calli lean saga and several pippa sagas last winter lasted for WEEKS, with discussion flaring up and then dying down constantly and i found myself skipping entire pages because there was nothing new being said.
Also honorable mention to all of those bouts of infighting and tribalism people had that lasted 3-8 pages sometimes. It's honestly eerie how peaceful this site is compared to that, taking into account that many of the involved parties are still here.