Well, in response to OND’s original question, here comes my two cents from a newbie/lurker...
To me, owning an cabinet was something unreal. When I saw Tom Hanks’ Big, his apartment full of cabinets was the equivalent of having a Pizza Hut restaurant on your kitchen and stuff of kids dreams.
When emulators hit the computers I downloaded Goodroms in few weeks time with my Napster, but the experience was horrible on a computer...
When I first heard about building my own arcade, I was very excited. Bought the book (first edition), and my dream goal was to build the Supercade (it’s website is still at my favorites tab). But I didn’t have the time or the space to do it...
Life moved on, until work has let go of my weekends, I had a son (now 2 years old) and I had a garage and the fortunate event of a CRT TV without a purpose...
Then I got back here... bought the new edition of the book, started binging project posts and building up knowledge to start MY project!
Contrary to OND’s impression, I was mesmerized by how the community has grown! There was multiple cabinet styles, ORIGINAL designs and even a pinball/driving metamorph!!! And the market was awesome! Multiple companies making brand new products so that you could choose lights, color and quality of everything arcade related, shipped to your house in a week... they even have a f... LCD marquee!!!
The community has grown to maturity... With it, companies started profiting by delivering ready to go cabinets, and also we bred what every other community gets... elitists...
And I am not saying this as an insult, but merely recognizing that my dream supercade project now its a common thing... boring to be honest...
My first cabinet is going to be a CRT upright 4 player MAME Cade-named large (and possibly little bit rough and ugly) project.
And I am guilty of doing exactly what OND exposed: I was going to post when it was complete... first because the community can be harsh, second because my project is so common that an incomplete post would add little to the forum, and third because the forum is so complete nowadays that almost all of my doubts where explained elsewhere...
But don’t undersetimate the power of the first project... I will finish it, but I have been addicted to it... partly it is your fault, because when I saw Rotoron, my mind was blown! I am already thinking of my next project, an indoor heavily themed non orthodox arcade... and maybe in the future, another dream, a force feedback flying /driving cabinet.
Well, you and the others veterans and inspirers in here... keep up the good work... it means a lot for us lurkers and arcade lovers out there...