Simon, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to explain things and give us much-needed reassurance!
In light of the terrible mishandling of JWR's rude, abrupt and short-sighted closure, I really appreciated your very intelligent, compassionate, and reasonable description on how one would properly (with compassion and awareness!) bring a forum to an end:
"... It's hard to predict the future and make absolute promises but I can't imagine ever just shutting the site down without any warning and if it was going to end, would imagine it would be a staged process - initially disable new registrations, eventually disable posting (after a lengthy period) and then have the site read-only for as long as possible. Basically, provide as much opportunity as I could for any transitioning."
Thank you, dear sir & your lovely wife (and all others who make this site wonderful!) I hope you know how much you are appreciated.