I don't post often, but for what it's worth, here is my perspective:
Although I am new to chasing (x3 years) I am anything but a leecher. I am partnered with an experienced chaser, and I have an enormous passion for learning. When I first read Tim's "Storm Chaser Handbook," and "Forecasting Handbook," I immediately took his advice and found an old copy of the now out-of-print, "Science and Wonders of the Atmosphere", and read it. I also purchased and read literally a pile of other met books. I have every one of Vasquez's books, including legitimate copies of his software. I have read (and copied by hand to a notebook) every one of Haby's Hints. I interact with some local meteorologists and chasers almost daily, and listen to everything they have to say. I ordered "Severe Storm Forecasting," a couple of months ago, and have already read it twice... I subscribe to F5Data, Allisonhouse, and I own a copy of both GRLevel 3 and Level 2: Analyst Addition. I may not have many posts, but this is much more than merely a passing interest or a thrill-ride for me! I've even looked into going back to school to formally study meteorology, but I'm a 38 year-old paramedic with a family and bills, so sadly that just isn't going to happen...
I've only been on five chases so far, but I have had a very high success rate (four tornadoes in those five chases) and I have continually upgraded our equipment and software. (For the record, my partner has chased for about 15 years... so I'm strictly speaking from my own perspective)
Now to my point: although I actually feel as if I'm becoming fairly good at forecasting, I don't post my own thoughts here because I'm not yet confident enough in my own forecasting abilities and I fear that many here would eat me alive. I've started having pretty good success with my forecasts, but I don't yet feel that I'm competent enough to stand with some of the greats here (many of my mistakes are matters of terminology or semantics); and while we have never piggybacked off any of the forecasts here and we actually take pride on doing our best to avoid the convergences, sometimes, such as this past week, the forecasts are just so obvious that convergences are unavoidable.
Especially when trying to NOWcast on the fly, it's easy to overlook an important but subtle feature, and by reviewing the NOW/forecast posts here during our chase, we can sometimes gain some important insight which we have overlooked. I'm most definitely not talking about piggybacking but merely fact-checking ourselves and looking for insight from others which may cause us to re-evaluate our own forecasts. (An all-important distinction!)
I guess my point is that I do hope you will base your decisions as to who does or doesn't have access to the forecasting forum on more than simply the number of posts that one has to his name, or how often they've contributed. There are "lurkers" such as myself who are part of a more experienced chase team, and who absolutely strive to avoid piggybacking (who doesn't want to get a unique view of a storm which few others managed to catch?!), yet who rely on the fore/NOWcast discussions to stimulate our own thinking so that we can be better assured that we didn't overlook anything.
Quite frankly, (and I don't mean to diminish the importance or prominence of these forums in any way) but in terms of sheer numbers, I would guess that the iPhone is probably responsible for far more yahoos than the forums here are. The number of people who actually base their chases on these forecast discussions are, IMHO, likely a statistical insignificance compared to people running around with RadarScope or demo copies of GRLevel 3.
At the very least, I would appeal to the admins to consider grandfathering in those who are already registered and have access to the forums. Many of us probably could contribute more (and will in the near future, as we become more confident in our knowledge) but don't simply out of respect.
