I mean these changes make sense to me; anyone who uses facebook actively can tell how much people gravitate to groups and events (and little else). Since groups have really picked up I've found myself using Facebook more than ever before.

I think the main benefit is that a lot of people have a facebook account, including those who would never have thought or bothered to join forums in the pre facebook era, so now we're seeing a ton of really great communities. Then again, I wasn't on the internet for all that much of the pre-facebook era, so maybe I don't really know how things were before.