Agreed. I also get lost in the random side discussions.
I hear you guys, but the reality is that a thread requires active discussion in order to stay alive. And when there is active discussion some of them will be tangents. And the more people are involved the more likely any given discussion will be seen by another as tangential by someone.
At the same time most people aren't really interested in tracking multiple threads so attempts to split tangents out into separate threads tends to kill those discussions. Since the discussion that happens tends to happen here people are increasingly likely to post here.
Then toss in the concern trolls whose purpose is to divert discussion into fruitless, heated arguments and you have a serious headache for moderators. So they threw in the towel and said, "have a free for all, just keep it clean." I don't blame them, moderation is a thankless task (and occasionally someone with brass will go after a moderator). They
have asked people to post in appropriate threads where such exist (e.g., politics, SpaceX).
So I hear you. If I look away I can't keep up with this thread, it just moves too fast and has too many diversions. I'm doing a lot more skimming/skipping and don't bother with more than the last five pages when I come back. But unless you can convince the productive posters to all switch to a different thread and the rest of us to stay out its just lather-rinse-repeat.