Camaraderie is expressed much differently these days.
I have been around long enough to remember when the first thing anyone did when there was a bit of down time was to pull out a deck of cards and get a game of eucher going. Now, the second there is down time, everyone reaches into a pocket, pulls out a smart phone and does their own thing on line (even in the deepest woodlines of Wainwright in MR 14, you could see people wandering around looking for the best avaiable signal. Try to talk to someone in the DFAC and you are almost garunteed to get a "huh?" response as they look up from a phone. (It is even sillier when they look up from the phone to comment on a news story they just read while you are watching the same story on the big screen TV in the DFAC).
Much of the time, they are actually texting friends and acquaintences, looking at and responding to social media sites, playing on line games with like minded others etc....
Combined with the reality that most people live off base and are going home to families, or living in an economy which offers a plethora of choices and you can see why institutions like the mess have died out in many bases (and why people would be resentful of being forced to pay into something which has absolutely no bearing on their lives). Even arguments like networking are moot when you can "network" with far more people and far more effectively on line.
As for not even getting to hello in the PMQ patch, you can get that just as easily in an apartment building or suburban neighbourhood in the economy as well. There are many complex historical and sociological reasons why this is so, you are up against an entire culture here, and I am not sure where the solution lies.