I’ve been going to official forums for a long time (I stay away from Reddit because that is a hole from which I will never reappear), and I have only once actually interacted with a dev (MLB the Show) and only once (for sure I may have influenced other decisions) had my input actually make it to the game (Overwatch).
Direct dev interaction, in my experience, never really works well. As soon as a dev jumps into a forum, they get absolutely flooded. People you have never seen on the forum before suddenly come crawling out of the woodwork to ask some of the stupidest, most mundane, unimportant, or already answered questions (that last one happens A LOT).
In my eyes having the community manager as the go between and the filter for the devs is a better solution. Issue here is that something in that chain is clearly broken. I have no idea what part, but based on the effort Max puts into improving these forums I’m guessing it’s something above him, but I have no way of knowing for sure.
The occasional locked thread post just to say “Hey, we actually do read the forums on occasion” from a dev would go a long way though. I mean, as long as it wasn’t a lie. Of course there is kind of a catch-22 there. Because even if they have been reading the forums, there is no way I’d believe them based on their actions.