Hi Chris,
First, welcome back!
Unfortunately the group is awfully quiet lately. And Yahoo having major server problems with their Groups system isn’t helping either, so I’m not sure everybody receives your messages. There are some Facebook groups also, but the problem is that it’s worthless as an archive. (Not that Yahoo Groups is much better.)
As far as I can remember, back in 2007 there was some unfortunate fallout between members on the mellotronists group and then this group was created. (It was three beers ago so I’ve forgotten the details, I believe it was about censoring posts/people.) Traffic on that list decimated. And then around 2012 traffic started falling on this list too. I see that on more lists. Also seems like Yahoo Groups is not being maintained or actively promoted by Yahoo. I took over from Clay in 2014 as moderator.
Can’t help you with your other questions though, hope someone else can!
Kind regards,