I don't think the numbers are up but there are more people bringing their grievances to meta which is a good thing providing they get listened to and in return take on board what the community advises.
As to making things clearer, the new /about page (which is broadly the same for the whole of SE) has a few words to say on this ...
and later it says
Where to send people, there is Where can I ask questions that aren't IT questions? which may be a start or as @Zoredache suggests a new meta question with an answer pointing people to other places. The only trouble there is curating them as, as can be seen from my example it is woefully out of date.
