Say what you like about sticker notifications, but I think, in a way, they were a means of policing the forum. If you posted something dumb, every notification that popped up calling you 'Dumb' or 'Autistic' or 'Mad at the Internet' was like the forum's userbase collectively hitting you on the nose with a rolled up newspaper like a misbehaving dog, going "NO!"
Perhaps this is just me, but since sticker notifications were removed, I have noticed a lot more people freely posting all kinds of retarded and gay shit that suggests to me that there's apparently a not insubstantial percentage of this site's population that are more suitable to the attentions of a lolcow forum than to posting on one.