Responses from those users are more likely to pendantic, overly argumentative, and unhelpful.
I’ve noticed a small uptick in responses like that (which, admittedly, may just be confirmation bias).
I think it might be due to the large influx of reddit refugees (full disclosure: I’m one, too). It takes a while to get used to the fact that the “atmosphere” of fediverse instances is different. It takes time for people to realize that this isn’t a toxic environment that encourages assholes. They’ll just keep on being hyper-defensive, confrontational, and/or deliberate misinterpreters of things while they focus on irrelevant points. After all, that was the norm on reddit for years.
Good users grow out of that. Unfortunately, some users just don’t want to. We have to take the bad with the good, though. Defederating completely would make Beehaw much less interesting and fun. The community just isn’t big enough by itself.
TL;DR: Yes, Beehaw benefits from federation. Federation has its drawbacks, but they are massively outweighed by the advantages.