Well, the stakes (and, concurrently, the infighting) are always higher when you're in power than when you're not. Pre-2001, we were practically all united around a single purpose: Get the 'Toon off the stage and make sure his even more evil (and worse, far more boring) Mini-Me wasn't elected president. Now that we've got the White House, we're free to spend more time arguing over split ideological hairs.
BTW, does anyone know if The Mods ever keep note of IP addresses and actually ban them so that they not only can't sign up multiple accounts, but aren't even allowed to read the site? I mean, if you run a search for duplicate IPs in the account database, and you ever find more than two accounts using the same IP, then you've got a probable disruptor. And even the two-account IPs should be checked to make sure they're legitimate (husband and wife, etc).
Of course, diehard disruptors could get around this just be accessing FR through AOL, but I have to admit I wouldn't complain one bit if the whole of *.aol.com was blocked from FR.