There's got to be a change in how we do things than AfD, though--it's broken, hostile and fully gamed. Here's another user who joined just to delete articles, his very first post was an AfD, a few days ago and that's mostly what he does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&dir=prev...
Something really has to change, because it's just a nasty place where people are trying to change Wikipedia policy by deleting types of articles they don't like--again, like the group that nominates categories for deletion or conversion into lists then the lists are upped for deletion.
What's the use of policy if there is none because it's being created by people with agendas? Their agends, by the way, seem largely anti-religion categories and lists.
KP