This is really not a wikitech-l type of question, is it? I don't
personally have a firm opinion about it.
1. On the one hand, we're always having a fundraising drive in a
sense. We have enough funds right now, or nearly so, to buy a 4th
machine to either be used exclusively as our mail server, or to be
used exclusively as our load balancer, or to be used as our 3rd
webserver. Even after the new db server is installed, all three of
those will be legitimate needs. (We might combine some of those
functions at first, of course. But there are good arguments for
separating them all as soon as we can afford it.)
2. On the other hand, Mav's argument is (perhaps) that we can
maximize revenue by not having the request up there all the time,
and I think there's something to that.
--Jimbo