I've never known a league other than SHL. I 'joined' SBA a few times, played GOMHL but that was designed to be as low-maintenance as possible. This is to say, I don't play in any other of the major simulation sports.

I don't consider the SHL to be in crisis mode. Tensions in the league have definitely been sinusoidal throughout its history. I do think, though, that the peaks/valleys are only getting worse. This is because some of the systemic issues within SHL infrastructure and politics have not changed, and while interest in other things has gone down (lack of media, the agonizing FHM simulations, screenshots of results on Discord that are hardly discussed between most members of opposing teams), it's become more apparent that there isn't much in SHL innovation to ... anticipate.
Until WBF took over as Commissioner, I felt so disconnected from everyone in HO, even if they typed walls of text at me, because I rarely see them interact in lighthearted media and other forum type situations. And this is as a max earner, where arguably I should be engaged on the site a lot, I'd think -- and that really isn't the case. The discourse that usually makes its way to the forum is an argument that's already been decided lest it be spammed with inside jokes first. It's just not fun to be around. I'm sure this exists elsewhere but the transition from purely forum/Chatzy stuff to mostly Discord and sometimes the forum was something I could never really get over, I guess. I'm responding here to actually just ask myself, in stream of consciousness, if it's worth recreating after this.

I'm leaning toward no. I've had fun with Donair but that's only because of which Discord servers I ended up in. The PTs are whatever, I don't really know if people look at other people's players and what goes on in the index, I don't find much to read on here, I dunno. Just seems played out.