Jason
I am a competent Googler so I am not in the least suprised by much of what you have explained. Personally I feel that a hobby is best served by it's practitioners so I favour your approach. (But not everything necessarily needs to be assimilated and archived in a single place, that can be a good way to create fossils.
)
In effect you are picking up where Cardmodels.net unfortunately faltered. Now Cardmodels.net was originally founded with, amongst other things, a determination that there would be none of the banning and blocking that was occuring on other forums. I hope that you will choose to pick up on that element and be tolerant. I think experience has shown that the membership can establish standards for behaviour and to some extent enforce those standards for itself.
The timing may have been fortuitous but even so it was excellent.
Thank you
Maurice