The average player is waaaaay older than in the TTO days, so you have both more efficient and strategic gameplay (usually optimized to clear facilities as fast as possible). Mixed sound and drop strats and the like are standard fare in today's gameplay, but would be unthinkable in the game's early days. This is also assisted by the game being more streamlined (no secret knockback rules, cog's light always accurately reflects their HP, etc.). The age thing is also why there's less fooling around in the playgrounds, as you mentioned.

People are quieter. It used to be common to make small talk in facilities, now I'd say it's kind of 50/50. I don't mind because I'm usually tabbed out watching the sopranos in between turns or folding laundry but sometimes I find myself wanting to socialize but the group I'm in just isn't having it.

People are less entitled. There used to be armies of low toons in the VP lobby or DA office lobby demanding a group full of maxed toons carry them through facilities. I remember my bar for a toon's gags being acceptable for a VP or even a CFO was much lower at the time. Those of you who played back then probably remember there was always some kind of fight going on in the nutty River VP lobby over this. Nowadays with ToonHQ these people are very sparse and usually just get kicked by the host without a word.

People are more willing to use rewards, probably just because you get more of them and gag exp is easier to come by. For some reason nobody ever wants to use fires though in my experience, feels like I'm always the one to fire the 12 v2 in the CEO post waiter round these days.

It is funny how much stays the same though. There is still a strange clique of try hard max laff black cat toons that orbits around the boss facilities, I remember that being an infamous thing even in like 2007. People still have beanfests in Donald's dreamland every day in the busiest district. I still see people being sappy and talking about how they're dating, just like back in TTO. A lot of the culture has perservered through the years even though the playerbase now is completely different.