Those conversations are going to happen. I agree it's not the best forum because guys seem to bring their sports "zero sum game" philosophy to the discussion. It's frustrating and we never seem to make much progress, but I still think it's better to have the converstion than not.

Having said that, it's often the people with the strongest positions who engage in the discussions (on either side). When reading or participating, keep in mind that most people looked at the thread and said "I'm not getting involved in this" because they know it will probably be futile. There are posters who never visit the off-topic forum, and there are probably posters that avoid any thread started by playa2 because he's perceived as someone who likes to stir up trouble.

So the positions are often fairly polarized in these discussions - maybe more so than they would be if everone on the board participated. So the participants on any given side don't particularly "represent" the board. So if you say something like "I thought this board was better than that" it's an indictment of the whole board based on the opinions of just a few outspoken posters, and I can undestand why some might take offense to that.