(I planned to reply yesterday, and now there are so many wordy replies ^^; I may repeat what others have said)
Despite having been an UTAU user for almost 3 years, I haven't been that active in the community as I had hiatuses in 2014-2015 while returning sporadically and having continued being active in the community just a couple months ago; I can't speak as a long-time member of the community, but I can speak as a member who has seen glimpses over the course of almost 3 years' time.
To be honest, I enjoy how everyone is striving more: voicebanks, covers/originals, tuning, mixing, new oto methods, and the like. Plug-and-play covers are less common and otos are better than before, and there's the glorious moresampler (a pleasant surprise to find out when coming back)!
To want to be the best at something you love doing is very normal. As arrogant as these may sound, I had thoughts of wanting to "be the next kyaami" and to be "the best Miko Ooka user" before
which is incredibly ridiculous and embarrassing to admit. Kyaami is MitchieM from another dimension and the best Miko Ooka user is ChieP (every hardcore Miko fan knows that 
As long those kinds of thoughts don't consume and blackens your personality but rather motivate, it's perfectly fine.
Back then, I limited myself to just the vipperloids (with some exemptions) with the unadmitting fear that I will find other "better" UTAU - I was right: I've been downloading more UTAU I wished I found about much earlier; not to mention, the majority of them are non-Japanese VBs!
As stated above, I've been absent in the years before, and to be honest, I find the fandom much more mature than before: drama is shorter and more people reflect on their actions. While fandoms gain more naive members when growing and lasting longer, the earlier members eventually mature.
Now I'll try to read the other replies *.*