The forums are interesting because people post here, while half of the in-game messages I get are automated reports. So yes, human communication is more interesting than machine generated messages.
And human communication is in part down because people have taken it to the forums. Even if just 20% of the stuff posted in locals previous can be directed back into the game again, that will noticeably increase the number of messages posted there, which in turn might bring people like you to add to it again, increasing communication in-game further.
