I'm pretty okay with the "diary" thing, in fact, I think it would bring interresting content to the forum. I would personnaly not leave my blog in favor to this, but why not linking it, or even totally copying the content in a thread ? It can also help people not running a blog to share their experience, which would be nice. I'm totally in !

For the cross posting though, I'm a bit reticent... I try to put myself in the position of people from the other board. Someone come saying "Hey, here at nixers, we are actually discussing <thread name>. Would you like to join us ?". It seems a bit like hooking to me, or like saying "We're unable to discuss this alone, because we miss interesting users"

Otherwise, thanks a lot for sharing your ideas.