There is a big difference between going OTD and what Rav Soloveichik himself said his reasons for creating MO were. The epidemic of formerly frum Yidden working on Shabbos stopped gradually because of the post WW2 influx of “yeshivish and Chassidish people.” Those who arrived before WW2, except for a small group that was based around Torah voDaas (then in Williamsburgh), were lost. No one identified as “chassidish” before WW2 except the Malochim.
anon1m0us, you are just regurgitating the worst stereotypes of the Torah-true world. I am stating facts, based on what the major figure of MO himself stated. He felt he had to bend Yiddishkeit to the times. The European refugees who kept their emunah in Hitler’s or Stalin’s gehennom weren’t about to bend in America, and what’s more, they worked hard and built up a financial infrastructure of their own. Even some who compromised in the early days upon arrival in America were able to pull themselves back up because the social and financial infrastructure were there for them. Sadly, welfare became too readily available, and it enticed some characters to “learn all day” who should have been working, but that is another story altogether. Reb Yoilish ZYA told his followers to go out and work, and work they did, so it was no longer necessary to even change your dress to get ahead.
DaMoshe, you do not realize that serious MO and the yeshiva world are converging on each other. I remember what MO was in 1984, when it did serve as a step up for me (albeit a forced one – I preceded Chabad on my college campus, Aish was much smaller than it was today, and the MO community was all I had – I outgrew it in about a year). I was pleasantly shocked to see how much higher standards were in 2005-7 when I was last in the US. The Five Towns were pure MO, kippa off for work style, in 1984. Now, yeshiva leit and even Chassidim live in Cedarhurst and Woodmere, and they’ve strengthened the old MO community.
MO can serve as a kiruv stage for those coming from secular backgrounds, but not as a haven for dropouts. Dropouts of the type the great tolerant MO here call “bums” want to remain a part of their old social world, even as the objects of derision. (That goes for the MO dropouts I knew in college too – they wanted to be with their old friends from high school and their year in EY, but they also wanted to date non-Jews, and the latter won out.) Those who leave for (pseudo-)intellectual reasons don’t want any part of Judaism, and if they want spirituality, they find it in places we don’t want to mention here.
MO was a horaas shaah that certainly did save some people, mostly descendants of Americans who came before WW2. However, having quite nobly served its purpose, it is quietly fading away as its constituents realize that in a free society, you do not have to bend in any way, or accept kefiradige thought (aka Western philosophy) in any way to succeed.