Bethesda employees don't often directly engage in conversation (probably because it's easy to take things out of context). Besides Gstaff, the most common employee I see talking here is Vsions.

Yes actually. A Dev called Vision was poking around and made a post or two recently. Personally I'd rather most of them spend time making sure the game works then posting in a game forum, especially if it's their own forum.

I'd like to think they've got much better things to do as of now, than sit and have a chat with their "fans".

SmkViper makes regular appearances in the CK forum to help out.

Some guy called 'g staff' comes here sometimes

Bethesda has never communicated with us as often as other developers. That's just a fact of life we have to live with. But I would say they have actually been more communicative since Skyrim was released than during the years prior to Skyrim's release.

I do remember one thread where one of the Obsidian guys posted in an Area 51 thread why they decided not to have it in (Old World Blues had always been planned and handled the secret base with hi-tech weapons etc and Area 51 was too overdone) and the Op started verbally attacking him.

GStaff comes here more often than the rest because that's his job. As Global Community Lead, he's directly in charge of these forums.

Yeah, it's not always a great thing to have devs actively participate in the community like that. People here are cruel enough to Bethesda already. It's easy for a dev's comment to be wildly misinterpreted or taken out of context, and they're under no obligation to justify their design decisions to every forumite that claims "dumbing down". Just look at the Paradox forums.

Relevant quote from a http://uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Fan_Interview_IV (they did one for Skyrim http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1207390-skyrim-fan-interview/) after Oblivion's release:

Question 14 in that interview is also a nice read, if more specific to Oblivion itself; I like how Howard called it out as a loaded question, though.

At any rate, they don't ignore the forums. Some devs can be seen helping out in the Creation Kit subforums, and every now and then (for TES at least) a writer will post something interesting and/or esoteric in the story/lore forums. They definitely pay close attention to the modding community; although they're reticent to talk about any specific mods, to avoid any sort of unintentioned "official endorsemant". Hopefully they'll do another fan interview, or maybe even an AMA on Reddit. But don't expect them to just hang out on the forums and explain why they did what; they're busy making a game.

As long as they don′t spot the drone I have hovering over their studio, I′m fine

With every new game or DLC it's pretty obvious they do listen not only here but on the nexus and steam workshop too.

Yeah, if I was a dev you couldn't pay me enough to be on the companies "fan" forums.

(And I say that based on various games' forums I've read, not just the Beth forums.)

This. While I can see saying that "I'd rather they be working on the game" everyone needs a break. Heck I post here during work during breaks and after hours. It is real encouraging to see the devs post if for nothing else just to know that they do appreciate the fans. Imagine how we'd flip out if Todd posted in the threads somewhere. Sure Todd has work to do, but I really don't expect him to be working 24/7.

EDIT: I do like to think that they are here incognito.

If I was a dev I wouldn't fool with the forums, particularly the Fallout forums where a certain element who's never forgiven Bethesda for acquiring the franchise seems to make a full time job out of haunting the forums just to bash their efforts. Why would they come here?

I'm sure they read the forums. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them chat here as regular forum members. It would be a great way to keep in touch with fans and mix up ideas.

Community Members may be reading them and passing them on to relevant staff, but the forums are primarily for user/user interaction, not user/staff.

There aren't really great pathways for that, unless there's a specific staff member on social media - which from my observations, they find draining and eventually quit, because they end up being the receptionist for everybody's whining.

Did you find out anything?

No. Apparently they do read these forums and thus my drone was shot down

Not typically, OP. They browse and lurk more than anything, but often elect not to make their presence known.

A few developers have posted to various threads. I think they read a lot of the posts but don't respond to most.