The forums doesn’t go far enough in this purpose and doesn’t allow for real emotional bonding and growth to take place
If you've never emotionally bonded with anyone on a forum, that's on you.
The forums allow that just fine. I've had forum relationships that were way stronger than anything I have had offline before. It just depends on you allowing yourself to bond with others.
And what do you mean don't go far enough in this purpose? What else do you want? To create a group conversation with other writers to share story drafts? You can do that too. It's as simple as clicking the "Start a new conversation" button.
As for growth, there is a story feedback subforum already. You can ask people to check out your story and give you advice on what can be improved on it... And again, if you want to make a writing group, it's as simple as creating a group conversation.
The forums provide everything you want. You just need to use the features available to you.