I agree with the OP,
my issue is similar. I am a new diver (27 dives) and as a n00b I think that I can learn from the more experienced. So I keep coming here hoping to pick out perls of wisdom.
I guess that its just a matter of critical mass and this board just isnt there yet. It certainly cant be easy for the site admins as there are other boards that are in direct competition with this one and they are going strong. The ONE thing that does suprise me is how closely this boards layout resembles one of their competitors. I am CTO for a software company during the day and I try to avoid copy cat user interfaces, its better to be new and exciting. I feel like if you too closely resemble the competition users will say "why switch, I already have THAT over here and more users/data as well."

as for advertising, good call, IIRC I found this site via google adsense.