In reply to Brin Wilson.

Only sort of platform that could replace it in my mind is one that is linked with WP.com so if you have a wp.com account you can be found and sent a message or start a discussion easily. But that is just an out there idea and would take a lot of work to implement in such a way that it doesn't annoy a lot of people but in my head would be a great way to bring the community together just a lot of work and having to be very careful not to open up itself to be something that is just misused and annoying to many.