NGU is a massive site. With over 900,000 people, those who don't make meaningful contributions to the site are much more likely to go unnoticed. In a lot of ways, I'd say that being a member here requires you to constantly be striving to start meaningful (not irrelevant) threads and make meaningful posts. Otherwise, yes, your posts will probably be skipped over and no one will really know who you are.
Yes, it used to be better and easier to get yourself noticed. That's because there were significantly less users on the site and we had some really good staffers and community members who were able to create a much more close-knit feeling. This kind of feeling of community is a lot harder to create when you have so many members joining each and every day. It's also hindered because people change their names practically everyday, so I don't even know the users I used to know very well.
But in essence, make meaningful posts and you'll be noticed. Make silly, one-line posts and people will skip over them because they (might) have more important things to do.