welcome to the ebb and flow of sdreefs. at its heart it's a local market place, because for all the other things it serves there's other places that do a better job at it.
show off a tank here? cool, a few folks may say something, and a handful of others will say some negatives. Go on a national-level forum and you'll get a lot more input as well as some more moderators keeping the junk down.
It's no fault of SDreefs per se, its to my opinion simply the nature of the beast.
And no, can't say I remember those newbies, I'm from the older days myself