Nothing 'sucks' more [to peeps who have been in the skinning community for eons] than to see any site disappear, no matter what the reason.
There have been several over the years....and some managed to return, others failed to adopt [or find] a viable business-model [financial sustainability]. All, bar none were heart-felt losses, particularly Customize.org [I think they were gone for well over a year - but returned], Deskmod [never recovered from a critical database loss], and Skinz.org [was definitely not-quite-the-same thanks to Efront]. These guys were 'the big boys' [of their time]...before the genesis of Devart and Wincustomize....[Custo was the first skinning site of them all].
When one goes, no matter what the reason...or even how big/active its loss dilutes the animal. It's not about maybe ending up with all the eggs in one basket....it's actually about diversity...so that it's not down to one person or group of people to decide what eggs are in that basket.
Multiple sites means multiple admins....multiple choices of galleries....multiple archives...multiple philosophies.
Skinning MUST be bigger than one part of its community.
It cannot be allowed to dissolve into just one or two sites dominated/directed by only a handful of people.
Think of it this way.....the Louvre [in Paris] is a quite significant art gallery [one any 'serious' artist really NEEDS to see], but if it were the ONLY gallery the world's entirety of 'art' would probably be diminished by what.....99%?
None of it is dispensible...
