I think that part of the thing about the community is that there is a huge influx of new energy into the hobby. When I started RPing 20 years ago (yes I know, it scares me too), it was something that those nerdy geeky guys did. At the recent Student nationals in the UK I ran a group which was all girls. Now this is something truley wonderful. I have moved from hack and slash dungeon crawl to deeply involving emotive subjects.
I think the real drama comes from the whole social interacion and not the system. I think this site pretty much has the right idea though. 1000 monkies etc.... all of us looking for something good and new and eventually we may stumble on the next big thing without knowing it.
EL