I don't think there's anything to the idea that academics are "better" than community-based psychiatrists. Some of my colleagues are pretty terrible clinicians. That said, the fact that there are academic opportunities for continued learning and you generally work with a bunch of other people, which facilitates information sharing, may make people in academic settings more likely to at least be more up-to-date. But it's not as if everyone in academia - at least in my shop - is outstanding or the best-of-the-best. The expanding role of PAs and NPs also, in my opinion, means that the quality of care we are providing in our outpatient clinic is gradually declining.
Personally, I would never work in an outpatient clinic as an employee or in a big health system. At my institution, the outpatient psychiatrists are the lowest paid yet probably do the most amount of work on a typical work day, and they definitely have the most administrative hands in their work than any other setting. I have to do some clinic work (for interventional psychiatry assessments) and I thoroughly dislike it and would get rid of that aspect of my job if I could. I would much rather start my own practice and be my own boss than work in a huge system in the outpatient setting.
Benefits for academia for me include: 1) a reasonable workload in my setting (inpatient) which simply doesn't exist in private facilities, 2) being able to teach, and 3) being in a group of folks that I enjoy working with. I have no interest in research so that's not a big draw for me. You will definitely take a pay hit going into academia compared to what you could make in a private setting, but the benefits of working in the setting might outweigh that cost for you. Only you could make that decision.
I should also say that you can still maintain a community of folks even if you go into private practice: in our city, we have a local APA branch that is fairly active and is mostly filled with folks in private practice. Going to conferences and other formal educational activities can keep you up-to-date clinically. These things are not exclusive to being in academia - it's just a bit easier to do those things in academia, I think, by virtue of the environment.