When I first started to get involved with Land Rovers (well, a Land Rover, but you know what I mean) I visited loads of forums looking for the right one for me. I naturally started with those that were affiliated with magazines (LRO and LRM) because the names were familiar to me. Then I came across a few of the other more widely recognised forums and had a look at them instead before finally coming across this site.
I found the layout, the ease and availability of info/tech and the depth of knowledge to be very much to my liking so I settled in here and don't really use any other site but on the occasions I have visited them I've found most other forums (with the exception of a few) to be a bit frustrating to use, occasionally offensive and in some cases, simply useless.
Fortunately I've not been affected by the change to LRM/LRA but I can see why it has caused such frustration. It seems to me that there is an assumption that people are constantly active on a forum and couldn't possibly miss a post regarding future changes to the site. We saw a similar issue on here not too long ago. However, quite often people change their email address and do not update their details on forums so miss out on emailed notifications. I should imagine that emailing tens of thousands of members would be a bit of a nightmare anyway so really there's no option but to post a notification and hope that everyone sees it in time to make arrangements before the change.