Why do I feel like a frog that has just been thrown in a pot of warm water over a lo simmering fire. Will I jump out when I notice the water starts to boil?

I hope so!

Listen folks, if you work in a corporation like I do, then you never know the true intentions of why they are doing what they are doing. Only they know and when you find out, there is nothing you can do about it anyway. So just go with the flow. I agree that the name is important but that's not the issue. They, Macworld, want and needs to sell magazine subscriptions to pay the bills. To that end, if they are able to keep the readership and content of high quality, then they will drive some of us to their subscription. This is what they are banking on.

Mac OS X Hints and the forum by itself isn't enough to achieve this. By putting it under the MacWorld domain, they get closer to reaching that objective but the risk is that this excellent site will begin to degenerate into oblivion. This site and neither the forum doesn't pay their bills. Magazine sells do!