Uh, no one's walking on eggshells. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. John's the only one that does anything to control the servers, etc.
It's John's board. John does what he wants. If you're so inclined, i'm sure he wouldn't be adverse to a nice donation to compensate him for his time and the money involved in running the servers that support GC
And just say no to avatars! The huge sigs are big enough, as well as annoying (and sometimes inappropriate) pictures. We don't need more junk on the screen