It's kind of a shame you lumped all this into one post, because it could have sustained us for months.
To your point about the atmosphere around here lately, I do agree, and I've dialed back my posts here too. I've found that judicious use of the "ignore" feature does wonders in tuning out the hate, sanctimoniousness, and the false intellectualism of the self-loathing see-it-my-way-or-else crowd. But that's a very small handful of posters. This is still a neat place.