1- A lot of the ANN topics are filled with people managing several accounts and paid to bump the topic. Or most of the post are filled with shitposters posting "great project sir" "awesome project for the moon" etc... They are not posting because they're interested but because there is an incentive behind. It can be a challenge to find real posters in a discussion.
2- Running a signature campaign where users use their signature space to promote the coin and are paid (with BTC or tokens) to post. Or some paid people to bump their topic to get more exposure (as said in 1-) It is something not very welcome here since it generates a lot of spam and low-quality content (like "great project sir" "awesome project for the moon" etc...)
3- Yes, definitely. members who have been on bitcointalk are usually more focused on technological innovation, they're more "crypto purists" while the majority of members who joined the last 2-3 years, joined only to make some money from campaigns, they didn't know what is a cryptocurrency before, and even after a year they still don't try to learn something about it. The forum is their cash cow
4- a discussion that involves a small number of users usually mean users that are really interested in the project, but an altcoin topic with a small number of users doesn't exist here lol.
5- Can answer to this, sorry
If there is anything we can help, you're welcome to ask us, there is always the light turned ON here
I personally will be very interested to read your research once you completed it, if it's possible
This was super helpful. Thank you! Some of the points you brought up indeed confirm my findings! I will send you the current version of my finding with some follow up questions with direct message. It would be great if you could please spread this thread to your veteran bitcointalk friends and convince them to express their opinion as well.