Indeed, the new forum software is poor and a worse for users than the previous software. User activity has reduced since it's introduction. I suspect the people implementing the change always knew it was poor forum software (is it blog comment software adapted for forum use?) but it was part of a wider range of changes which may well have been beneficial overall.

Now that Stereophile has been able to measure the effect of the changes I was wondering if they are going to invest further and address many of the users issues by perhaps reverting to more "normal" forum format/software or perhaps continuing with the present setup and accepting a somewhat reduced role for the forum.

It is hard from the outside to judge the costs and benefits of the forum to Stereophile. Not many hi-fi publications run particularly successful forums and some that have in the past like Hi-Fi Choice have let them die.