It is a shame that the question is so loaded.

As a user (and professional sysadmin) my impression is the complete opposite, that moderators are overly critical and too quick to close questions as off topic that could be helpful to get answers to.

It gives an impression of snobbery and unfriendliness and drives people away.

Search and ratings are the best defense against junk not heavy handed moderation. In the earlier days there were many questions that looked bad but redeemed themselves or added points which could be merged into a canonical duplicate *once the discussion had run its course*.  Nowadays these are jumped upon too quickly and the useful aspect never happens.

Also closing questions simply because the questioner mentions a dev or home setup is wrong when that question and answers could still apply to a professional environment.  People need to stop and think before they flag it.

My questions therefore are...

 1. can we improve search/default views to highlight better questions rather than force close/filter out bad ones (except spam/completely broken ones).
 2. can we add a time limit before questions can be closed for being off topic
 3. Have the mods/high end users lost sight of what this site is to new users/everyone else?