I don't really see anything getting worse. There's the standard ratio of idiots that's always there no matter what group you're talking about, but that's a given. That ratio seems as stable as always.
Atheism has always been a category that actually has relatively decent ratios of reasonable people, I think. At least after high school. There's always some fedora-wearing Machiavellians in sophmore year or something, but as far as the grown-ups, I've always thought it did well.
To me, the atheist/theist conversation seems the same as ever. Most of it never gets passed defining what an atheist is, for exactly the reason you gave: people just making up definitions for it and attaching whatever they want. The majority of atheists don't care enough about religion to bother discussing it, so you don't hear from them much. Those who do are often substantially into philosophy, and within that minority I find a uniquely high rate of good conversationalists.
Atheist "idiocy" or even "militancy" seems to mean "any atheist who ever talks about atheism." Interestingly, even some atheists buy into that -- especially ones who live in the South, I've noticed. They join the chorus of shaming atheists who have ever so much as admitted they're atheist, and then they do this weird little dance back over the theists looking for their head-pat.
I am guessing it's a self-advertising technique developed by people who don't have many like-minded or even tolerant people to rely on to support or acceptance. So if they want to be popular (why any grown-up would care, I don't know, but some do), they have to come up with some way to endear themselves to the people who control the social scene, even though those same people hate atheists.
Incidentally, those people are some of the most idiotic atheists out there. Totally incapable of having a reasoned discussion, because their goal isn't discussion in the first place. Their goal is self-promotion, trying to sell themselves to the people who hate them and trust them less than a rapist. So they inflame other atheists until they get a clap and a cookie. I don't get it.
