Re:

You have given some excellent ideas for revamping the site.  One thing I'm wholeheartedly in favor of would be to have a more attractive, welcoming and explanatory home page.   However, for some of the things you are suggesting, such as the speaker of the week, etc.,  I'm afraid that would require an ongoing commitment to updating the information. Something  similar was initiated years ago, I think it was called Curezone Highlights or something, been so long I can't remember, but only two people were actually featured, Wrenn and Janaki, neither of them still around, and then the project was was dropped.  Likewise, several other things have started but discontinued or aborted soon after inception.

I don't know how much time Dushan is able to spend on the site these days, but perhaps he is doing as much as he can by just keeping it running.  As you aptly put it, Laissez faire is indeed the operative phrase with him, so it may mean that we have to learn to accept things as they are and not as they could be.

For all that many of us feel that could be improved upon, the site continues to grow and has enormous traffic.   Perhaps the webmaster concentrates on these facts and the number of its hits and is satisfied with that.  Or not.