personally i always view the word "community" with a degree of amusement.
this is simply becuase if you place 20 people with common interests in a room together then you (or at least i) would expect them to form into sub groups. the groups would intermingle, but as an external observer taking a snapshot you wouldnt think "this is a single cohesive goup".
to a degree this is simply a different way of putting the "cracked window" description of MobiusCo.
as for what people want from and bring to the "community", i am far more at the "useful tools" end of the spectrum personally. earlier today i spent a useful hour making object bar produce 2 taskbars on my machine, and then divided up all my programs between them, making everything easier to find and use.
i deeply love the wallpapers and windowblinds skins, but, for whatever reason, find that most (nearly all) of them arent really to my tastes.
at root though, i spend time here for the "community", by which i mean the people.
where are "we" going? not so simple a question. i still have vague memories of when windows 95 came out, and there seemed to be an explosion of interest in themes. compared to the two different looks of XP, that was, and is, a very minor change to the look.
so i agree with the suggestion that XP is going to drive awareness of what can be done, and this should bring new people to this world.
at the end of the day, most of us are here because we want more than "standard" windows offers, be that art, skins, power, or all of then
since it seems unlikely that microsoft will suddenly realise all of our fondest wishes for an OS in any iminent release, i doubt that we will be going anywhere soon
