"When I look at top elgg site lists, most are either inactive or completely gone
within a couple of years"

I think blame should go to poor project planning. That is not something to do with Elgg usability

I contacted another former elgg contributor. Here is what he had to say

http://galaxiess2.blogspot.com/2012/06/buddypress-vs-elgg-case-study-and-best.html

@itsme

If you are speaking from a perspective where you will throw thousands of dollars into developing your site then it will definitely fly.

I had to re-engineer the titles for SEO especially for the discussion and other portions so it can match my titles on Wordpress and after that at least its getting on Google ranks.

My community is definitely an semi-open community but if you don't want one like that then there's no need for SEO.

That being said. Why do you always repost the exact same link. Is that like your site and your AdSense rotations you are sending us to?