I think your analysis is perfectly logical. A newbie would generally not: (1) know about the calvinist wars (2) get involved in them in their very first post (3) get quickly banned by the mods.
I think you are also correct, in general, about why protestants don't frequent these threads. I've had too many freep me privately and say that the climate of the protestant threads was entirely too non-christian in attitude.
Take it or leave it, but it is true.
I have been avoiding posting to these threads for that reason. I did post to this thread in response to a couple of unprovoked attacks on non-Calvinists. I could not help but notice on this thread that before I even chimed in, there were one or two veiled swipes at my character beginning with the first and second sentences of the thread (referencing secondary sources) and then in post 5 the poster made the accusation that personal attacks against calvinists seem to be in vogue (this by a poster who IMO will feign ignorance of Calvinism in one post and then in the next post appear to feign expertise on the same subject).
Well nobody seems to be taking the bait.
Maybe nobody cares anymore.