What's the worst thing that could happen if we got rid of userpages altogether? Wikipedia would grind to a halt because most of the users would probably leave. Not because they're hugely attached to their userpages, but because it would be a ringing endorsement of the conduct of certain admins (deleting inflammatory userboxes without a policy for it, and then when there IS a policy for it they abuse THAT, and block people who disagree with them, etcetera) in this whole userbox mess.
Cynical