I don't think forum complaints are a very god indicator of the overall difficulty. Across all the courses these last couple months there have been a huge number

I don't think forum complaints are a very god indicator of the overall difficulty. Across all the courses these last couple months there have been a huge number of posts about X is too hard, I'm giving up, "y dunt pr0f mek qestuns ezr?", etc. For the most part they are all in the nature of people who aren't at all invested in their work but feel inclined to voice their problems, sometimes as a complaint or sometimes as a mild attack. I do occasionally go on the forums to answers people's questions but never to ask unless it's a site-specific bug– I'd rather ask someone at school or work, reddit, HN, whatever. What's unfortunate for the professors (or rather, whichever TA is putting together the report on user feedback from the forums) is that their sample will be biased towards people with no background, less resources, etc. It's not necessarily bad as long as they account for it, and I'm sure it's something they think about in terms getting more of the able students to stick around (like in some of the conceptual/theory/adv. topics subforums around). So I know you're not really arguing here but I just wanted to put that out there since you mentioned the forums. Carry on!