>>Once the 10$ barrier was in place I felt it lost a lot of the quality. I understood why it needed to happen, it got too popular for its own good. However, I couldn't help but feel that once it created a barrier to entry a lot of the "aliveness" got sucked right out of it.

Quantity went down, but quality increased.

I mean, that's what barriers to entry are about: they keep out the lowest-common-denominator trolls, while those who actually care about the community have no issues paying the entry fee (sometimes several times, as they get temp-banned).