I think the change to the EM&PR forum is based on the travel blog's creating a large amount of money with their blogs vs their original start.
In the early days there was a lot less money and the early starters mainly did it for the fun of it. Look at OMAAT when it started, it was not for profit and you can read the posts when he finished college where it was not so sure that the blog will be a better choice then just going into a 'regular' job.
Later on you saw a lot more blogs popping up done by people that saw the money the early starters made and tried to get into the business (MMS being probably the most successful).
When the money gets big enough close to everybody will sell out, it might start small (e.g. Chase complaining about something you write and you start self censoring) and then it gets bigger not showing the best offers for credit cards or pushing cards because it pays you more.
Look at e.g. here from 2012 from a different large blog:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/...dom-of-speech/
I understand the bloggers, its big business and the big guys will milk it as long as it works (seems like the smart money starts to sell out already, e.g. TPC, MMS etc.).
I still read the blogs and get some valuable information out of it. You just have to be a bit careful about their advise on credit cards and also there are too many filler articles to create clicks. Also the click bait headlines are a bit annoying but you see this now all over the internet (including in my facebook feed).
So in summary in my opinion the changing tone here is based on the changes to the blogs and those are based on the (relative) big money they are now pulling in.