I saw this too. I think it was hard for people not invested to see how much of an empty puppet it was. No real power struggles, no cohesive coordination, just a shuffling of seats and a forum to bitch at.
Now I hear there are two schism churchs on either end of Dwilight and the main hall is still picking sides. SA had to be somewhat more interesting, or else you wouldn't be posting.
The main hall has already picked sides- apart from Gustav's character and Jonsu's initial follower everyone who has taken sides has done so in favour of Helm and for the past few days most discussion as ceased as everyone waiting for Jonsu to "finish her rp" and step down like she said she would. So hopefully within the next week the whole situation in the main church should return to normal and , as per the will of the majority of active SA players, things will return to the old system with some minor adjustments. Clearly for many players the old system seem far more appealing and interesting than anything that has happened since, so I think the generalisations that it was somehow objectively "stagnant" and "boring" doesn't fit into the player reaction, which is overwhelmingly in support of it and in opposition to your supposed "fun-making" which most people want over as quickly and painlessly as possible.
As for the "schisms", I'll grant that the Lurian one has the potential for conflict- though I think if it does end in conflict then the temples in Luria will merely be destroyed, while the north sends some angry letters but doesn't do much else. But I guess that counts as "interesting". The supposed "schism" in Niselur is really nothing of the sort- we've heard next to nothing about it within SA; its basically just like a random new religion with no contact with us has sprung up and to be honest no one seems to care.
