Reading this thread, I see why innovation is dead. Everyone is missing the boat on what innovation is. No offense, but we used to be in a world where people would line up to be a part of project that benefitted the community. Databases, 3rd party tools, group buys, art restoration projects, product testing, detailing builds and posing real questions for the community to troubleshoot problems. Some glimmers of that here, but I think on a whole, it is too easy to “drive by” a build right now. When you can get an entire hyper spin pack of roms for every system, art, configuration, etc. it becomes very easy to never go through the iniatiation of working with the community to want to make things better for everyone.
I think new members who used to join came at a fairly early stage, and kept coming back as they saw the value of working with a community of hobbyists. Now it is common place to see someone pop in here first post with their build “done” whether it is good or bad. If it is good, then it is generally because it is a clone of someone else’s work, it it is bad, then we are likely to give honest feedback, and looking like a pack of bullies in the process, because that person was never looking for real feedback at this stage. We could honor that, most of us do, but Sugar coating our opinions on the cab to make someone feel good is not the purpose of this forum nor does it help future builders looking for best practices. Unfortunately I think a lot of vets here faded out or just bite their lip because if they are honest, they get called snobby elitist purists. I know I have been called that, and my crowning cab design is a slim, flatscreen, half size, sit down machine. (And fairly innovative)
If we really want innovation again then we have to start being willing to get our hands dirty to help the community. When obvious things like MAWs stays dead in the streets for years, it is hard to say there is nothing left we can do. There is a thread that died a few days ago about reviving the arcade art library. I get the op needs to chime in, but this should be stuff that we should be lining up to support.