This may be a bit presumptions, or maybe i'm taking things a bit too far by making this post, but what i want to make clear is that i very much like this site, and think where it is at is a good thing. However based on jbadams recent post, it seems that their may be a potential long term budget problem with supporting this site?
If this is true, i'd like to try to generate a discussion on what can be done to help this site, that doesn't resort to the site becoming reliant on tons of ads, and will hopefully benefit users in the long term. my first suggestion would be to look at the system something like reddit uses:
Gold is something that users can buy, and give to other users that gives them temporary additional features. GD.net already has GD.net+, I would say it might be beneficially to add a similar system here, where users can give posts(note i think this is a key component of the reddit model's success, as other users can see exactly what posts were given gold and how many times), and that user gains additional GD.net+ feature time. secondly reddit also displays the daily progress to support the site, which in my opinion reminds users who do have additional cash to support the site, can always know where the site is in it's requirements).
This is of course one suggestion, and I think there are other ways that the site can benefit without worsing the user's experience. I truly hope i'm not over stepping my bounds on this post, and admins are fine with having an open discussion on the financial situation of this site.