I think the main reason Demonoid, Oink.Me, Torrentit, Torrentbox, Bitme, Torrentleech and some of the other sites I've frequented had/have much better thank you ratios is you had to be logged in to browse the torrents & download the torrents.
Yes Demonoid would let you browse but if you were not logged in you could not download the torrents.
Here you are free to browse & download without even having an account and this is nice but it took me a while to figure out there is an extra step needed if you want to comment/thank someone for the work it took to upload the torrent.
IE:people tend to be lazy and you need to make it as easy as possible for them to thank you..if that's what you want them to do.
I learned about file sharing when FTP was the all the rage and torrents were not even invented yet (1998) and that scene was COMPLETELY THANKS driven.
You needed friends to work together to find and get anything...it was very personal and I spent countless hours cruising warez sites and message boards looking for other people that had their own FTP's
With FTP you needed a Username, Password & the correct port # (usually never port 21 on a private one).
So yes torrents are way, way easier to find & download and at the same time so impersonal you really don't need anyone unless you want to get on an invitation only private tracker.....just saying many don't upload and don't know/care how much work that it takes to put up quality stuff!.
