Well, not to be too me-centric, but I know that if there's a BBS I will look at it sometimes, out of a sense of responsibility for the project, but I'm not likely to "live" there in the same way that I "live" on the mailing list, if you see what I mean.
So if important policy discussions were to take place there, I'd miss them all completely.
Perhaps what we need is just a better interface for the mailing list archives, and some means for people to post to the mailing list from the web? What are the main features that the pro-BBS'ers want?
Just as I don't care if other people read email using Microsoft Outlook instead of a civilized mail program ;-), I don't care if some people want to read and participate on the mailing list in some BBS-centric fashion.
As long as I can live my life in emacs, I'm happy.
--Jimbo