Chiming in late here, I agree that a more heavyweight new-account process is the path of least resistance, and I wouldn't particularly mind if the email features went away entirely. I too keep a tab open to visit here once a day or so to see what's up.

While there are plenty of alternatives should empegbbs.com go away (e.g., G+ groups, Facebook groups, etc.), we'd lose even more people in the transition. I'd suggest that we don't want to go there yet. Another alternative might be professional hosting. I have no idea whether ubbforum.com, ubbcentral.com, or any of the others are any good or what they charge, but they *are* out there.