Some great points being made in here.
I also feel that people chipping in with their views will keep the drafters involved in some fashion once the building stage is complete. We, as participants, are constantly over-estimating or under-estimating our sides, and as things stand, there is no place for feedback in the system. I believe this also goes some way into 'going through the motions' attitude. Once we are done with the initial drafting stage, the participants lose interest as there is nothing to do that directly affects the teams performance.
If there were more discussions and analysis involved, participants would have a chance to assess their performance, and maybe have some scope for improving/tweaking their sides. I also believe that we could design drafts that would provide more such opportunities to the drafters.
For instance, the draft at hand, the Domino Draft, is bound to keep its participants interested because they get to improve their sides when they progress. This draft does this through a strategic element, which is one way of achieving interest. We could make simple alterations like allowing more than 11 picks in snake drafts (say 13 or 15) so that the drafters build a squad of players which they could use to alter their sides to achieve greater balance, match the opposition in certain of the pitch, and what not. All this would be possible if there is more discussion in the threads. In-thread votes would add a lot more flavour to the draft experience, and the fun/engagement won't be restricted to the building stage.