Most days for me its a coin toss between whether listen to my ripped cd collection or Soundcloud playlist (mostly forumites) - even when I've bought new CDs I've often opted for Soundcloud. Honestly other than the hype, lucky break, budget and production quality, I don't think there is any difference in between the better peeps on here and those that have lived it up for years off the back of their music. Often I prefer the Soundcloud stuff as it is less predictable, sanitised and written for a particular market.
I've pushed for playlists, forum tags, mutual promotion/sharing on Facebook/banner sharing etc - I think Boydie has ideas on the agenda with his site revamp. To be honest I think the forumites do well in supporting each other - how else would I have getting on for 2,000 plays??! Some of the guys on here deserve a lot more exposure though.