The good thing about the program on the subtitles side is you get to review other peoples subtitles and approve them before anyone ever sees them. Kinda a teamwork effort. I'm sure it works the same with the flagging but I haven't ventured into that area yet, but when I do I will be sure to write about it.
I understand what your going through with your channel finding its identity. I went through the same crisis on my own for months and finally settled with minecraft type videos because I enjoy playing the game. I don't have many more subs than you do at the moment, only 44. Those came from my vlog era and my beginning minecraft era. When I stopped the minecraft type videos though, my subs stopped increasing, now that I have picked doing them back up, I have slowly been gaining again.
Also as far as the youtube guidelines, follow them loosely. None of my videos have been demonetized and alot of what I say in them breaks those guidelines. Happy Creating.