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I think we have enough experience with crowd-sourced websites at this point (Wikipedia, Reddit, SO) that we can make a general statement that crowd-sourced websites attract just the sort of people you've described precisely because the "average" person that just needs an answer doesn't have the time/will to hang out on those sites providing content for free. I'm not sure there is an easy (or possibly any) answer to that problem.

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My perception may be skewed by my infrequent use, but strangely math and physics stackoverflows have much less empty posturizing and generally have high quality answers that are thoughtful and helpful. Most matters of "opinon" are limited to the topics that really are matter of personal style - i.e. which textbook is better ("x is better people who prefer y but foo is better if you like bar" instead of the dogmatic "xxx is the only correct book on this topic).

If true, could this be caused by those professions being more academic, and thus full of people who both have tenure and flexible positions and who teach for a living?

Yeah I even see this in volunteer groups offline where organisers often are abrasive and pedantic and very difficult people, who basically lure people into this trap of a free event, and then use the situation to constantly try to assert themselves and jerk people around.

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