I think you're doing a great job building an independent WordPress community here. If I were in charge, I'd try to put more emphasis on the independent aspect of it. With few exceptions, there's an awful lot of rah-rah in the WordPress world. Which is good, it's a good product and the praise is usually deserved. But it's not a perfect product, and it would be nice to see more constructive criticism. Give WordPress folks (developers, users, whatever) a couple of (virtual) beers, and find out what they might say. It could be very useful to have an ongoing, open discussion of pain points and possible solutions.