Brian, thanks a ton for the feedback. Yep, I had no illusion about 6000 items being enough to cover everyone's gear list, but I figured it was a pretty good start. Actually, we already have an additional 15000 items in the database, but those items are still waiting for their weight data to be entered. As you can imagine, it's an enormous effort for a small all-volunteer staff. That's why, to some degree, we're counting on our users to start submitting some of their own gear weight data to contribute to the cause.

To answer your question about joining, yes, we do plan on monetizing the site down the road, although the methods are still being discussed. For example, though, in order to sell advertising space, it would be to our benefit to maintain membership data to provide to the advertisers. Sometimes simple site traffic data isn't enough. While it's a bit unorthodox for a website to explain its monetization strategies up-front, we'll consider placing this info on the Join page.

Thanks, again, for your great questions and feedback!