I fail to see that GT has changed for the hotter, especially when remembering the long ago years let'S say 2002-2005 or so - then some debates really became nasty. Maybe it is that people grew older and their perception of GT is all that hands changed?
Me, relations to some people over the years have improved, to other people they have worsened. All in all I would say the GT has grown calmer over the past 2 years, compared to the years before.
On mods, some are good, some are mediocre, some are bad. What mods never should do is moral preaching and abusing their title for immunity, or undermining the forum mod's authority by playing the moderator card in a forum to which they are not assigned and where their reaction thus is toothless posing. Neal should consider that mods are allowed two accounts - one for their private debator role, and one for their moderator role. Its the only really clean solution. I think Neon all in all does a good job in GT, because you rarely notice him being around, but when something became really nasty, most of the time he used to show up.