The only downside I've experienced in the Critique Forum is low traffic.  I have a fair amount of people I follow and critique, some of whom I subscribed to back when the Critique forum and gallery were the "Critique Club."   I'm more cautious about giving critiques after that experience, because lots of people said they wanted critiques and then either openly admitted they couldn't handle critques in general and left, or argued with every critique anyone gave them.  So even when people think they want critiques, they can find them intrusive in practice.  That said, I'm still thanked fairly frequently by those I give detailed critiques, and most of the people I give them to weren't in the Critique Club. 

I think a good indicator of being open to critique is whether someone mentions an aspect of their work they struggled with, or if their gallery seems to show some sort of change or growth.

I go to the gallery all the time because I have so many subscriptions.  There's a lot of amazing and inspiring artists here.  Eric Walters - if you'd like me to add you to my subscriptions and critique your work as it comes out, I'd be very happy to.  Your work is very interesting, and I'd really enjoy it.  Just to warn, though, I often get backlogged on my comments.  My new images notifications are presently up to 23.  Only some of those are from people I critique, but enough so that it will take me a bit to go through all of them.  So if you don't see comments from me, it's probably just because I've gotten behind on my comments again.

Looking at that thread, I was the only one who thought the discussion might have been more valuable in another forum.   I had and have absolutely no official position, and didn't think my post implied I did.  I certainly didn't mean it as some kind of reprimand.  It was just (as I said at the time) that the post specifically involved a Matmatic script and I didn't think anyone who came to that forum could critique it.  I also thought none of the people who could critique Matmatic code would even find the thread to be able to do so (which they didn't, unfortunately).  To quote myself, "nor was i trying to say that it should be expunged from this forum as forbidden or some such."  So expressly not even suggesting (let alone dictating) that critique of Matmatic scripts be forbidden, let alone technical aspects of renders.

I did actually suggest the Node Cult at RDNA, since I didn't know of a material specific forum here.  And I also asked that maybe it was time for a forum like that here, but no one said anything.  That said, there are already lots of theoretical material discussions in this forum, and I don't know if people would find them as easily if they moved.