When do you actually stop being a newbie, I wonder... Since it has nothing to do with rank or posts or anything...
Anywho. I think some people might be taking breaks as well to avoid the trouble of certain users that have been suiciding accounts on a daily basis and the fact that some of the mods have been less than active on the site.
Also, it is not a problem that there is a lot of repeated threads (it is rather hard to come up with something original these days), but rather what people do with these threads, and what discussions there is(n't) going on. I guess, to make the forums more attractive, we all should try and take a deep breath before making threads or posting in useless threads, and think about how your post/thread can make the thread/forum section more interesting. Or something like that. I'm tired.
oh, no offense but you people never remember the old AG.. sure i've only been on about a year and a half, but Ag has changed so much... The location is a different thing though AG has awalys been in crappy headquarters. And people will come back.