completely agree with you Joe, the portal and the whole site would need an overhaul, like planned for each upgrade...

so, as it's always 4 times work when done, wouldn't it be more productive to see if someone is completely devoted to that task, instead of spreading the tasks for the same goal ?!... see, you can have a situation for design/usability maintenance, that person would not be involved in other things than the look and feel of the site, with the members echoes and requests/suggestions, debating everything with the admins...

personally i think it would speed up the development of some of the features here that need a recode for upgrade etc... don't you think?

and no, i'm not thinking of any name to do the job, i thought you were the one in the best situation for that actually..