At the end of the day, chatty, open-ended discussions are not what StackExchange is about. It's a really focused site designed around Q&A on specific, clearly answerable questions.
They may have made some bad decisions but closing this thread ain't one of them.
I agree with you, to a degree. StackOverflow is a good example of specific, clearly answerable questions. Many of the SE sites have topics which are, by their very nature, far less clear. Take "the workplace" for example - is anything on that site going to be fact based, and clearly answerable? I don't think so. When you move into topics dominated by softer, fuzzy areas, the applicability of that particular moderation rule also becomes fuzzy.
Agreed. For every foo.stackexchange.com there is already a meta.foo.stackexchange.com and a chat.foo.stackexchange.com. Why not add idle.foo.stackexchange.com to the mix?
They may have made some bad decisions but closing this thread ain't one of them.