I note that some people who wish to migrate to a more controlled aviation
forum have a couple issues with the alternatives such as AOPA and POA. The
first being that they appear U.S. centric. The second that the layout is
actually a backward step in user friendliness.

While it isn't as good as some of the classic threaded newsreaders, it
occurs to me that creating a "Google Groups only" (non-Usenet) forum might
help a little toward addressing the two main issues (that I'm aware of,
anyway.) This is Google's info on creating a group on their systems:

http://groups.google.com/intl/en/goo.../overview.html

The third issue is who would most people feel comfortable with as the PIC
of such a group?