I think part of the thing is that the "way of the Internet" has changed. Back in the days of Ikros and Andrastavia, there were far fewer LEGO websites and (if my memories are accurate) when you when Googling (or whatever one did before Google was everywhere) sites like Ozbricks came up rather easily. For example, I found Ikros via the "LEGO Lord of the Rings" search that led me to Bruce's website. In those days too, the entire community online existed on Lugnet.
I think the "second generation" of LEGO Interneting, when the big forums were the norm--Classic-Castle, FBTB, Classic-Space--was also good for storytelling because although we were starting to diffuse the community, we were also concentrating the likely readers of a particular genre (LEGO Castle for instance) in a particular place--and in a place where, back then especially, they were used to reading blocks of text and ready to participate therein.
The decline of the forum method of LEGO online interaction coincides with the decline in storytelling. After all, to speak from experience, it is a lot more motivating to keep writing and producing when you have readers interacting with you--even if it's as little as "I like that" or "what about this character?" (Obviously, the more complex the better, but in terms of simply putting something out there, any sort of positive response will help.)
Now we're in the Flickr generation--and I think that it's doing a good job for MOC sharing and commenting, which has always been the bread and butter of the LEGO community and always will be simply from the nature of the brick, but such an image-based venue is not conducive to storytelling, at least not in the longer 'story' sense. I think the LCC is a good example of how the forum and Flickr can build back and forth into each other--the MOCs subforum has gone through a boom cycle of incredible MOCing thanks to the LCC, MOCing that is grown on the technical end by Flickr and on the community ("rules of LCC" and such) end by Classic-Castle.
Unfortunately, no such symbiosis is likely for storytelling, because Flickr is not an ideal platform for sharing it. Flickr is designed for mixing photostreams and multiple users and, in general, for finding specific photos rather than following a set of photos--and certainly not for interspersing picture and photo in the older "Ikros" method. And the community of potential readers (forums like Classic-Castle) are no longer as full as they once were (I don't think CC is "dying" by any means, but it IS slower) and the influx of new members on the LCC model are generally not as willing to participate the in read-and-write method that used to exist.
All of that said, I don't think LEGO storytelling is dead--but I do think it has changed. Similarly, the boom days of LEGO webcomicking have passed with the decline of the BCN forums and a number of their prominent members going on hiatus, but I see more and more comics on Flickr. It still exists, but the model has changed--it now resembles memeing on Facebook more than an old-school self-hosted website.
Perhaps my point is merely that you and I are throwbacks.
It would be nice if there were more of us, though.
