I came here for knowledge and drank deeply.
As far as mainstream goes, ProCooling was both for the modding enthusiast and the hardcore fringe, and the more casual audience of those that pondered perhaps trying their hand at it. Now that there are more affordable and better components available they can try with bought components. Really, how many folks even own a drill press let alone a CNC Mill? When a decent CPU block can be had for less than USD$50 why buy not buy a block rather than the tools? The primary participant was the audience, the actors folks posting worklogs and doing the things the audience didn't have the means to do.
What I see having changed is the attitude. There has been a cancer here that seems to have mostly gone in remission, but is none-the-less worrisome. That cancer is elitism. Folks come up with ideas or do projects, and the response is to quickly point out the shortcomings. There were too many folks here obsessed with some imaginary state-of-the-art performance criteria for water cooling, and any component that fell short of that obsession was instantly met with criticism. If anything, the ghetto roots of the hobby were forgotten, and the answer "Because I can" to the question of "Why would you want to do that?" was no longer good enough. Now folks are scared to try anything, or at least to share.
Let's see some more of the real world. You know, windowless cases and cardboard external radiator boxes wedged between the bookshelf and the desk. More copper end cap blocks. More reservoirs in old buried propane cylinders. Let's celebrate the cheese and embrace the kitsch. ProCooling isn't about being in the mainstream, nor is it about redefining the mainstream. Mainstream is stock cooling. Here, as long as it cools better than stock in some way (temps, sound, cost, looks, whatever!), anything goes.
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