Only partly true actually, and the reason I know that is because I recruited them haha. I recruited people that hadn't been in any sim league like this (i.e. @DollarAndADream) as well. Bringing back certain guys had it's lasting effect on things to with guys like Flyersfan and Smarch. My initial point was that recruitment took a heavy hit with people who weren't recruiting started whining about the amount of TPE those who were recruiting got. That is the opposite mentality that can be put out there.
Also, this site did great without a chat, so those theories are somewhat debunked.