I have read with interest a recent threads about balance and race choices. During the discussion I began wondering if there has been some culture shift in the community that I have been ignoring.
I think a large part of it is the medium of the discussion - namely internet forums.
Case in point, you have people being arguing with each other about at which edition people started arguing with each other. Which is only fractionally less of a parody of itself than a thread arguing Hitler was the personification of Godwin's law.
OK - pithy joke out of the way....
Some armchair psychology goes thusly: I think John Scalzi said that the failure state of 'Clever' is 'A$$hat'. On these and many other internet forums, you have an enormous amount of people extremely knowledgeable with a specific subject, with differing opinions, all crammed together arguing fine points of detail. The chances then of one of these clever people flipping into the fail state of Clever to make a point (or even just to take a cheap shot) is incredibly high. I think blending that in with a general human trait of experience bias, varying levels of empathy/dismissal, and the more pervasive issue of having to use language to communicate rather than vulcan mind-melding, which we all have differing skill-levels......You are going to get highly nuanced discussion poisoned by hyperbole.
A good example of this is, as you mentioned above, the Rapier/Short Sword debate. I have literally read people who call players "incapable" or "stupid", if they don't take a Rapier (and don't intend on TWFing). This is driven by a similar process as psychological pricing. With the Rapier and Short Sword, you are comparing two quantifiable numbers (6 & 8) against a known scale (higher=better), while at the same time comparing the value of something unquantifiable: how much your character wielding a certain weapon will add to your enjoyment. This is going to invariably lead to a disagreement between someone focusing on the clearly quantifiable, vs the person wanting a clear character concept. People being people, defending their position opens up the possibility for hyperbole to appear ("If you deliberately pick a Short Sword, you are actively ruining the game for your friends by not Maxing DPR"), which poops on everything.
Also worth noting that many, many threads and discussions start from a position of conflict of opinion: "I think rule [x] is poorly designed and would be better like [y]". Which is immediately going to be antagonistic to a decent number of people, one way or another, unless it's carefully/well worded.