Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your phrasing makes it seem like the people answering have the job of "keep up with the rate of incoming of questions." So, if there are a lot of incoming questions, they must reduce quality of feedback, since they are spread thin. Personally, when I answer a question it's because I want to, and feel I can be helpful. I have no skin in the game with regard to the site's overall ability to keep up with incoming questi…
The ability for you to find a good question to answer is in part based on the work that other people do in down voting and closing questions. If you go to the triage queue - those are questions that are being prevented from showing up. If you go through "newest questions" there are often questions there that can't be reasonably answered without more work to figure out what the problem is. As I write this, there's a q…
Yes, that seems like a reasonable take.
I suppose in my imagined ideal reality, people simply don't answer questions that are not asked well, or that don't interest them for any other reason, rather than actively body-slamming those questions.
If this results in a glut of low-effort questions, then the site suffers. As a result, the site has an incentive to provide better tools.
Right now, volunteers heroically stem the flood of poor questions by burning themselves out and sometimes getting bitter. The site still suffers, but in a different, more pernicious way.
I looked at a triage queue question just now, and it was indeed poorly-written. I selected "Needs author edit", and clicked "Submit". Then, I got a pop-up asking "Why should this question be closed?" and I was confused. I don't want to close the question. I don't want to send that signal to the question writer. I want them to improve their question, that's all. I canceled the interaction. So again: agreed about bad tools. Personally, I choose not to use them.