I literally had to skip all the way to comment on this matter and the most important way we can improve is to get our community involved with the things they enjoy the most. We have to listen to them and update all the dead forums and reimagine how the newer ones will survive if we don't constantly push the envelope. I would suggest we have related articles on the right hand side of the forum with the best featured comments and/or status updates about the hottest topics available and a media page to promote the website/forum but on all public forums available. We have to give more custom options that make sense and revamp the older sections that don't have a use anymore and if something isn't working then we fix it. Plain and simple. I really do think we have to think outside the box and do new things because like a chain....we're only as strong as the weakest link so we need to strengthen all parts equally and move forward with our best plan in action. I whole heartedly believe that half the battle is preparation and the other half is execution. I am a advocate of learning to mold myself into what's the next best version and I think we all have the potential to do BIG things in this lifetime but we waste it.
I've just spent my evening making gifs and am hoping to be able to make them for every RAW/Smackdown. I'm not a big fan anymore but it I've seen these topics gain insane traffic for some forums. Now lets hope everyone else thinks of more stuff like this. I agree with you that we need to rejuvenate dead sections. I've tried before with the gaming stuff and the general wrestling sections but I'm not sure it had a great effect. Let's continue to do so and see.