My 2 cents in general....
For sheer volume of posters, the GFY model is king. But ya know, I'd hate to see Oprano turn into that.
Boards aren't just pieces of software or information. They're communities. Communities of like minded individuals or at least groups that share a common interest. The Oprano community consists mostly of individuals who are more business oriented, have been around the block a time or two and are typically a bit older than the GFY crowd.
The GFY crowd seems to be young and mostly part timers or at best one man basement operations. There's more of them than there are old timers, always will be. The answer isn't luring more GFY users over to Oprano. That just waters down the gumbo.
However, it would be nice to help some of the people over there who might fit into the gumbo here find their way over. Same thing goes for any place on the web.
I have to confess in the past year, I have found a number of opportunities on GFY that never quite surfaced over here. This includes new content providers, scripts and even sponsor programs. That's a major missed opportunity on both sides. There are major players who read Oprano who will never wade into GFY deep enough to find those vendors.
As for solving Serge's hypothetical problems, it's interesting to see how various people approach a business problem. I've found that there are two things that will guide you thru most web business and marketing related problems. That is a good thorough analytical understanding of numbers and an understanding of human psychology and behavior.
Always always always study your data and numbers, and try to analyze and understand what makes them change both for the good and for the bad. When you identify something that impacts them in a positive manner, do it over and over. Automate and duplicate! If something impacts them negatively, get rid of it....or sell it to your competitor.
And always remember the key number in this business is NOT necessarily traffic....it is dollars.