I'm certainly not a veteran, but I've found that this is generally a very active forum. But you have to realise that it operates 99% as a technical help forum, since it's flooded with newcomers who just need help getting a thing right.
Also, if a topic seems dead, most of the time it's because the help request was too vague, poorly worded, uninformative or, sometimes, too complex.
I wouldn't really consider talking about general game design, ethics or practices here because, frankly, there are forums better suited (and designed) for it. But as a place to discuss Construct, this is perfect, and I would never have purchased C2 in the first place if the forum members here weren't so damn helpful.