I would concur (I've been around it a similar amount of time, building my first GPU rigs around that time). I would say it was once a bit better, but maybe that's just rose-tinted nostalgia. ("the good ole days")
Yeah, in the early days it was better... I would argue that the average IQ in the community around 2011-2013 was unusually high: The reason some of the people who bought currency in that time period made a fortune is because they foresaw the future and had a prescience that other people lacked (others just got lucky)
its quite comparable to the web...as it got more widespread the density of likeminded people adjusted to the true average...this does not mean there are no more good places to talk and develop cc, just they are clouded by all the noise above board.
Additionally, the barrier to entry was much higher then (obviously not talking about the price)