Lol @ the boner pills :p. I don't think a merge would be the end of the SM atmosphere as we know it, there will be more members, more work, more questions, more people in challenges etc. Makes no sense for simply3Dworld to try make tuts/boards for a 100 packages, there are already sites like that and personally I don't really like any of them. The Maya + LW + Max merge will do. Inside those 3 lounges, I think it's better to stick with the task related way of labeling lounges instead of software specific because if you have a Photoshop and After Effects lounge you might as well have a Painter or Nuke or Toxik lounge and so on when you could've just used "Digital Painting & Compositing".

I completely agree with you Ben, the community here is pretty hard to beat, on other sites there is the heavy stench of elitism and its just generally cold. With that being said, the frontpage kinda plays down the community to the point where it seems like an afterthought.

As far as people not staying, I think ..
1. We have a fair share of lurkers, no problem, some people are shy, whatever.
2.For some reason people tend to gravitate towards the obnoxious and the snobby, anything simple and laid back tends to get thrown under the bus.