I don't think it ever went away as much as it went behind closed doors as FW dragged along. The Matari and Caldari types I usually see in RP have never stopped disagreeing among themselves out of the public eye, as in "not on IGS".
For the Caldari, it's almost always been done quietly because of the need to keep face; FW added more to that sense of appearing as a unified group even while the megacorps and factions still played dirty between themselves. The Matari circles I haunt IC have taken a similar tone of mostly choosing not to drag their dirty laundry out into public while definitely not agreeing on things.
It's a tricky thing to balance, like RPing (or being) a skilled thief who prefers to blend in instead of openly brag: if you do it smartly, no one knows you're doing it at all. But, if people don't know you're doing it, it's hard for them to participate and broader RP chances to come from it.