I've been in two HOAs - one the nightmare power-hungry kind, and the other one was pretty good.
The first one was during my brief two year stint in LA as a youngster. That HOA president was the poster boy for a smug, arrogant, smart ass "president" who actually one time tried to order me to mop up the water from a leaking pipe in the underground garage "for the good of the building." He of course didn't get his hands dirty (I also didn't take his order). He was a total busybody too - always spying on the residents. After I moved out I'd heard the cops showed up to investigate him for embezzling. I never heard what the end result was.
The other HOA I spent over 20 years in. Other than the monthly newsletters, I almost wouldn't have known there was one. It was a large enough complex that they had a management company running things and the couple of times I needed to bring something to their attention, I emailed the contact and it was taken care of right away.
About the only thing that was probably bad in the latter HOA, was that for about the first ten years I was there, they were patching and sealing all the parking areas every two years, even though it never really needed it. I'm about positive that president had something going with a local asphalt company, because after he stepped down, we had one recoat in the next ten years.