Ran--
Now that I've made a contribution for this year, I can grade with clear conscience: A+ for the site, B- for the contributors.
I'm generally a hard grader, but the site will get an A+ from me as long as it exists in more or less its present form. There's nothing else like it, and the concept is superior.
I'm sure you can tweak or even replace the current software, which is a little creaky. But it's also part of the charm, and I recognize that YaBB helped you out at the creation.
You can't make the site any better than its participants. Even if you screen them perfectly with 1500 people there's going to be the usual human variation of modest/immodest, competent/incompetent, charming/insufferable, gentlemanly and perfect asshole. Your general approach seems to be to let the site police itself except at the extreme margins, and this works. So no matter what you do, the participants as a group are unlikely to rise above B/B-.
Even the best posters are sometime excessively self-referential. The course reviews and other formal articles on the site are excellent, and the site is diminished by the fact that this material is so rarely consulted and commented upon by most posters. The site would improve if posters, even the ones genuinely expert in the field, would introduce more and better historical information, not just their own opinions.
As an utter nonprofessional in the field, it's a treat to be able to participate in my limited way. As the lady in the bar would say, I don't come here that often (and I go home alone), but when I come I'm often entertained, sometimes appalled and more often than not I learn something new and interesting about the game I love.
Thanks for keeping up the site.