I'm still rather confused about the subject rising. 1 Admin on forum is not very good way to run a message board. Yes there is places that do that, but in example if both old lea's would have had only one admin on them, we would haven't had any protection against hackers or spammers or anyone who wanted to cause problems as the last 2 main admins were never very active on board. Same goes here, I'm not going to be around all the time, in example in just couple of weeks I'm going on a vacation for 2 weeks and if I was to be the only Admin around well if something happened during that time, well the place would be a mess when I get back. Also when it comes designing and all that, having more than one person work on the site is more than helpful. I knew nothing about Vbulletin, took me 106h to redesign and learn just the basics and get the place running and if I have to do everything that has anything to do with improving the site on my own, that will take way too much time and energy.
Also I never thought moderators or admins are intimidating if anything they are there to help to maintain the forum and keeping things in places where they belong, more moderators mean more eyes watching and finding things that need to be fixed, not that you are under constant supervision by the big brother.
Feral, I'll make sure to talk to Amanda and will happily PM you once I done so, It might take a while thought because I believe she is at work right now.