What happened to this once great organization?
The same thing that happened to the rest of the country. Hostile takeover by athiests.
BSA peaked in membership around 1973. It has been on a negative glide slope ever since. The homosexual lobby, Human Rights Campaign, got started around 1980. They concentrated there efforts against corporate America. Took them 30+ years but they succeeded. The infamous poll put out by the BSA last APR showed that the majority of donors still supported the current membership policy, i.e., a version of DADT, but >50% of the Fortune 500 donors wanted homosexuals in BSA. BSA's leadership projected that at worst, they would lose no more than 13% membership by 1/01/2014. The only denominations to flee BSA have been the Southern Baptists, Presbyterian Church in America, Church of Christ, some Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and a small number of Roman Catholic parishes. It does not appear to be a big Exodus from BSA at this point, but it may still be too early. Other FR prognosticators are correct - Robert Gates will usher in the 2nd part of the membership change during his watch - open acceptance of homosexual adult members.