Sounds like nostalgia there, I remember around 2006 old reddit was a lot like 4chan, where link Russian roulette was seriously a thing, and I saw things I wish I never did on what seemed like a harmless thread. Reddit's always had a shady, icky layer to me. There's also the mass, thoughtless consumerism that doesn't help things along.
I suppose lack of retro gaming discussion is simply because of amount of users, as the site grows I 100% expect it to be made and created. I've noticed a lot of comrades like Oblivion for some reason (I personally love modding it like one of those train sets models people spend years on). On emus a rom community perhaps?