trying to have an async conversation over time on Discord (and other IM solutions) is garbage compared to forum threads. While Discord added threading, in my experience not enough people have either adopted it ,or use it properly.

This right here. As a 40+ gamer, I don't mind 30fps. Been dealing with lower fps for a long, long time and its fine for me. But that just seems like an unreasonably low expectation of a AAA video games these days.

I do agree that for the average user, its not as easy as "lol funny cat gifs and memes are here, just make an account"

Reddit was much more easy for user adoption

I like it so far. It has some familiar features, but there are some learning curves to it.