The OTF had to evolve into what it became. It wasn't just born or created overnight and wouldn't likely come back with a simple format change.
We had our resident hippies (TMP in all of his various forms, Phish, and others). We had our gay guy (Cap) who any of us would have defended to the death while still making fun of him for bragging about his "record". We had Moops and Hottie, and Hottie's mysterious bikini-clad avatar. We had the snark of Spec, Stunned Monkey, Kookie and others (Stunned's Illinois barnstorming post is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the interwebs). We had the wisdom and artistic skills of Kref. We had SuperHoosier, for what that's worth. We had Shrock. We had Peach, and possibly one of her boobs IIRC. We had C$ and all of his bad life-choices. like putting his girlfriend's name on the title to his new house. We had Goat's stories and all the stuff he brought to the table. We had Hoosier Granddaddy, who could ID any female just by looking at her breastesses. We had Bob Sugar and his bullet-holed helmet from serving in the Middle East. We had RCab, unfortunately, but he was fun to throw darts at and whoever created that character should probably be commended. We had the best bullshit artists in the business and trolled the free BB board regularly. We had hotness pretty much every day and, I'm sure, tested Peegs' patience over and over again. We had the Tumbleweed threads. I'm leaving a lot out.
But most of all, we had Aruss. He was the glue. Who knows how many times he probably got us out of the collective doghouse with the powers that be (or were at the time)? The days after he passed, when all of the Old Guard (or was it the IC, if that ever existed) came back were full of memories and had a feel of the OTF glory days. Shortly after that the format changed and it was the end of an era.
My two cents.
