If we prioritize discussion above all else, we’ll get more discussion, but the average quality will go down
Not necessarily. One must look at the underlying reason(s) for why people aren’t contributing to discussions. If it is indeed that they have nothing of quality to input, and are then incentivized to do so, then, yes, that will cause a reduction in discussion quality. But what if, instead, users capable of producing high quality content aren’t contributing because they don’t feel that their opinion is welcome in the discussion – that they are afraid of being harassed, or ostracized? If these users begin to contribute more, then the quality would theoretically increase. Of course, it wouldn’t necessarily be that simple in practice, but I would assume that it would have a different effect than the former example.
A lot of low quality discussion isn’t going to attract the type of users that made Reddit great
I am hesitant to agree that Reddit was consistently producing only high quality content 😜 I would argue that the more likely explanation is that there was a flat increase in volume of content being posted, and the people sorting by new had statistically more good content to choose from. Unless, of course, this is what you are referring to.
I think better moderation tools is more important than comment and post edit history
I strongly agree. Not because I personally have any use for better moderation tools, but that appears to be a major, and most likely primary complaint that many people have when they come to Lemmy from other platforms like Reddit.