@happydolphin
I am sorry, but that sounds entirely pretentious, and entirely undeserved. I was on these forums in their heyday, and I know that is actually the opposite of the truth. If you think the conversation on these forums today is so incredibly smart then back then you would have felt like a toddler walking among giants. The current conversation is very much superficial. There isn't much in the way of deep thought, intelligent presentation, or well developed logic. For the most part it is just opinion rather then understanding.
This notion that growth, or a lot of voices degrades the final product is complete bullshit, and frankly if your kind of thinking runs this site into the ground. You aren't exactly the one left holding the bag now are you. The thing you aren't getting is yes more people means more trolls, and more dead heads, but it also means you get some more smart people as well. In fact you need more foot traffic to get those kinds of people.
You know there was a time when the staff of this site was actively interested in growing this site. Growing the number of users is important for that. So has the plan changed. Are future plans for expansion, or improvements being scrapped entirely. You see the problem you have with my idea is you know that I am right. I think your problem has less to do with what is right for the community, and more to do with perpetuating the status quo to maintain a lofty opinion of yourself.
I suppose you can want to be a big fish in a puny pond, but its a hell of a lot better to be a little fish in a big ocean as far as I am concerned. How about you make this your primary focus, and use some other place as a quiet little dive. It doesn't seem to matter where that is. Here its kind of a waste considering all the attached material that is screaming to be used.