Well it is certainly not slower, I have just achieved a record number of page views for the past 24 hours... over 5000. Hubpages traffic has constantly grown. You only have 23 hubs though, in 9 months, so you will be falling behind.... the web grows and grows, hubpages grows and grows, something like 100,000 new hubs in 2 months..... that represented 20% growth.... are you writing quick enough to retain your share of the traffic?
Not sure who you refer to with your other comments, but the forum is nothing but a small part of this site; so many hubbers publish but do not participate in the forums - much like you.