So my voice only matters if I've been here x number of days, or if the select few 'know' me?
Sure, you may like it ... and that's fine. Just to me, as someone who knows forum software like the back of my hand, this site is lacking pretty much every feature of your typical forum. A lot of those I'm sure wouldn't be needed here, but some would be nice. That was my only point. There's a reason why the traffic here is soooo slow, because there aren't enough features to hold peoples attention.
The whole point of forum's are to create communities, to facilitate meeting and communicating with people with like interests. There are features that could be added here to make that easier and more engaging for everyone, without adding flash that would scare off the more old fashioned users. A simple compromise ...