Jackson,
Most of these newbie questions used to be (and still are) in the Groups Forums - though as I mentioned above, the amount (and unfortunately the quality) of posts have decreased there as well during the past months.
I'd also assume that since SU was made free (about a year ago?) all the crowds who were already after a nice 3D application, have already mastered themselves to a certain level and questions are more rare.
I don't think that so many people will come here automatically (even instead of the Groups Forums) for obviously Google won't link these forums on the SU website (like it did with the Old Forums) saying "Hey folks; here are the Pros to answer you questions".
Yet I also think that after the settling (merging) of the two Google forums, traffic will grow again here.