From my point of view the happy thread was 20% people posting happy things, with the other 80% being animu, weird innuendo, incessant shitposting/dank meme storm and ~being passive aggressive is supah cool guyse~ so, nothing of value was lost, IMHO.
Counterpoint: Where would people post things that actually made them happy? That 20% doesn't just manifest into thin air, and people like talking about things that made them happy. Making new threads every time somebody was happy wouldn't fit with the established upperboard style, and consolidating the emotion threads would be a disaster I could smell from a mile away.
That said, I do agree with you to a point, although not to the point of "nothing of value was lost".
I *really* don't understand why he doesn't get community moderators. The lower boards have got to be a serious drain on DF development, even with his slightly heavy-handed moderation. I mean, he doesn't even just lock threads, he goes through and deletes the argumentative posts. Seems like a hell of a lot of effort.
Speaking from personal experience, promoting former community members to mod status is a great deal on a discount 100% pure can of disaster soup. The only person I could see him elevating to mod status would be somebody like Footkerchief.
I think we had a thread about this a while back.
Also, ninjas.