Time for me to chime in Dave.
Food for thought indeed, having just checked my profile, looks like I've been a member here for a smidgen over 9 years, I remember some of the sites people visited around then, Column5's forum was great (who can forget ABF?)
I started with Strike Fighters a little before that, remembering when this place Biohaz and ACF Central was still alive too. I kept playing SF through sixth form, then doing an Aerospace Engineering degree (furthering my involvement in flight simulation, getting the opportunity to do studies in this for my dissertation... universities have awesome flight sims!), and now I work as a graduate engineer for a Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul company which is a subsidiary of Airbus Group (formerly EADS).
Despite real life (work) has pretty much blown my simming activity (and more predominantly, modding activity) clean out of the water, I still visit this place practically on a daily basis, and enjoy keeping up to date with the modding developments people do.
Lastly, I believe one of the keys to CA's success throughout the years is that the people who run the place listen to what the users want.