I think you've touched on what's missing that could make it a more personable community--better communication.

I posted an image as a part of an answer once and it was removed with the reason "don't use third party image hosts". Thing is, I used i.stack.imgur.com which is the only method provided in the answer form on the site! I knew the user who did it but since my answer had been deleted, I had no way to contact him for any sort of appeal. It was a while before I tried contributing to the site again.