Yes, I kinda get it for people who don't write. They may not realize how much it means to most of us or may not know what to say. But writers can't make that excuse. That being said, I also see so many posts pop up on the Fanfiction subreddit complaining about receiving "hateful" comments just because someone said something that was less than a 100% positive, gushing, glowing review, and I can see how that would be a deterrent to people who already feel awkward about commenting. I guess you never know how the other person is going to react to what you say. The younger generation seems a lot more worried about triggering or offending people than we ever were.
You can still read your reviews on AC! When you're logged in, go to Account Info and Reviews Received. They're all still there. We were definitely spoiled, but we also established a culture of reader-writer interaction and set the expectation that people leave reviews and reply to reviews through our many discussions on this forum. There's not really a way to do that on AO3, other than modeling the behavior you want to see from others. (This is a very teacher response LOL.) I could definitely be better about stepping outside my comfort zone and reading other people's stories, but unless the summary sounds interesting, I don't read much fanfic anymore aside from what I'm writing.