I just check out Eccie. Their review format is almost identical as ours. Also why are they advertising us (another monger board)? Are they owned by the same people?
For the most part they are geographically seperate. ECCIE has never been very big in the NE corridor, and this site has never been very big in TX.
Every site--of this type or others--ebbs and wanes. ECCIE seems to have had some (un)civil war, and a lot of the old heads have departed. Some of the more calm and mature (the brandy and fireplace types) moved to another board in that area.
Will they regroup? I have no idea. But at some point they will fade away. How many were TBD members when it was the biggest and baddest? I was, and watched to eventually become about 6 grumpy old men (and women) in the shell of a big falling down house. Then one day the bulldozers arrived and it finally died.
I personally would like to see a consortium of similar sites, but don't know if the egos of all involved can play nice together for long. There are some really good folk on ECCIE, and some real jerks. As everywhere.