I kind of agree with you the feel of the board has changed. When I first started lurking, and even when I started posting, there was a very stark contrast in mood between the Football and Recruiting boards. They definitely seem to have merged. Part of that was the absolute nightmare that was people talking about Charlie's abillity to coach. The range of opinions (at least until the Kansas game) was much more disparate than the range about Herman to this point. I purposefully avoided the Football board for a good while and a lot of us would discuss the football team on the Recruiting board just to avoid some of the most egregious posters on the Football board.
There was also some pretty ridiculous hyperbole about how great of a recruiter Charlie was, how good his classes were, etc. Seeing what Herman did last year and his strategy for this year only make that more clear. That fueled a lot of the fun optimism on that board, plus the way Charlie recruited: the rollercoaster of "oh shit, this could all fall apart, to oh shit! we just signed a top 10 class" 2 years in a row created a fun environment. Herman locking up most of the class by June gives us a lot less to talk about and a lot less excitement, even though I'll take his recruiting 10 times out of 10 over Charlie's in retrospect.
Tl;dr I'm with you it used to be more fun, especially during the Charlie days, but I'm not sure there's a way we get back to that. Shit changes and it will change again in the future, like say, if we actually win some football games. I see that as our best bet at moving to a more fun environment.