No offense intended here but your forum you opened disproves that theory IMO. You had a flashier theme and all of those great things you talk about that members apparently want but yet you had a handful of members and it died after a month or so. This place is heading up towards 1 million posts now. It's all about content as far as i am concerned not whether you can put a little picture of pokemon underneath your name that proves how cool you are.
new forums need a ton of work now days, cuz forums are so popular, so to make a successful one its very ... VERY hard. although i thought id give a forum a shot ... and ive tried a few in my time, i never really put much effort into them. as im quite lazy and clearly if i put effort into it then it wouldnt have failed quite so much.
cf may be at 800k posts, but so what. minus the spam, and the social lounge and stuff, and it really isnt a great amount.
i know it sounds like im just being real negative, and no im not going to leave whatever happens, but some of you guys need to see the light. people like flashy websites and good content. they will not go to a site thats ugly, full of broken links, and spam (im not saying cf is full of spam though, or in fact ugly). as i said, maybe sort out better ways to upload reviews (build up a good archive that we can use as a reference), and offer custom sigs (in fact, im not even talking about custom sigs now, im speaking generally, anything is possible).
people need incentives to stay, current members need more than just a forum (some sites offer VIP, downloads, have a radio station, etc, etc). both the content and looks of this forum can be improved, and thats the reality of the situation. i just hate to see a forum with so much potential being stuck in the slow lane. ive seen it before
ive had a few beers, but apart from the odd typo, i believe im speaking sense. i guess its just a matter of opinions at the end of the day.