For the sake of your comprehension, I will make this blunt. Spam is being used as a scapegoat for our degradation and making it seem as though it is the biggest problem is disingenuous to how poorly our focus is on development. There are a few case exceptions where development seems fine, but in general it is sad that most of us, myself included, still revel in Game Maker when things such as C++ and advanced languages themselves should be pursued. It is sad that Minish Cap, for example, has been out for years and not all the graphics have been ripped from it, sorted, animated if applicable, and made listed for the members here to whom such action would help.
But what is even sadder is cycles such as these repeat themselves and few people are honest about it. Spam is going to seem like an issue to staff simply because they have other things to do and they are also forced to have Spam visible. Those in Spam who were active there were either the staff forced to see it or veteran/semi-veteran users who would not contribute to development anyway. Those staff and users as well as most if not all of the others active in that board still posted in other areas and were alright about it for the most part. There is always going to be an outlier though and to assume that this outlier is the sign of the Apocalypse is naive.
While I personally do not mind if Spam is gone as I am active in other areas, its removal does little to nothing in benefit of development. Also, sometimes it helps to examine why people assume something is negative or wrong and rather than act as if action must be taken, it should be considered if people are perceiving things for the wrong reasons.