In my occasional visits to this forum, I appreciate the information and especially the incredible, and sometimes esoteric, knowledge of the posters. None of that would be lost in a newer format. Neither does a newer format mean there would necessarily be pop-up ads. That is an independent decision.

In terms of ease of maintenance, one of the attractions of newer tools is that they have automated a lot of features as well as adding new ones. Generally speaking, with computer technology, maintaining old systems just gets harder over time as the external environment advances. In the production IT environments I work in, we generally find that being more than two versions behind current increases workload more than upgrading. What this means in terms of Mudcat would require specific analysis of the tool sets in use.

As far as the value of an update, I think embedding adds a lot to the newer sites. Being able to jump directly to a music or video example can enrich a post. I notice several posts say, "leave it alone, except for (insert poster's particular interest here)."

Possibly the biggest issue is whether the site wants to attract a new and younger audience. Based on many years of experience managing technology for university students, I can say with confidence that today's college-age generation (at least in the US) expects a certain level of graphics and a richer tool set. Creating rich media is second nature to many of them.

We are at the early stage of yet another major advance in web-based technology roughly equivalent to the development of the graphical user interface. Newer tools, such as wordpress, will probably adapt to these new developments. Sites built on older technology will be ill-equipped to adapt. As one example, think how visualizations based on geo-tagging and mapping could enrich discussions of folk tradition by graphically showing how lyric variations have spread. New tools are making visualization available to everyone. Text will remain important, but it will no longer be the nearly exclusive means for dialogue that it has been.