I've been through this on other support forums. When the sponsor of the forum (in this case, Verizon Wireless) doesn't like the way comments are trending, i.e., too many complaints, they replace a perfectly functional forum with a new 'improved' version that is awkward and unwieldy. Just like Verizon Wireless has done here. This makes it less convenient for users to complain. Fewer complaints = happy sponsor.
The downfall of this plan is that users just find other places to complain, and a web search makes them easy to find.