Why am I suddenly getting a flood of answers to questions that I asked 7 years ago, from users with accounts that were created a week ago?

They are point gamers trying to spam their way to level 3 and higher so they can post clickable hyperlinks and more non-answers per day. If you don't report the non-answers you are enabling them.

Community moderation probably IS NOT OFF. Some people are intentionally and maliciously fueling the rumor mill AGAIN by making that statement.

As pointed out, they're point gamers and spammers. They answer old questions because those are less likely to be noticed and reported (although it looks like community moderation is off yet again, so it doesn't really matter). They want to level up to look legitimate and be able to post links.

They are point gamers and spammers trying to get to Level3 to post their junk. By answering questions where the account is probably inactive, they think nobody will report them.

We are all getting those,the are point gamers trying to get up the levels quickly.

Those would be spam bots, yes.