Nothing wrong with asking for enhancements, but, a little perspective (from another member who has been here since the beginning). Disclaimers: I have no connection with the company other than as a participant, customer and neighbor, no inside knowledge, but I do have years of experience managing online forums, and can make some educated guesses about this one based on what I do know about the company...
I believe the web staff and RSE management are fully aware of both the strengths and the limitations of the forum, and all the "wish list" items posted here have been requested many times before.
It's worth remembering that the forum does not (directly) generate any revenue for the company. It is a cost, not a source of income. (Of course, it's a valuable asset, it gets a lot of eyeballs and arguably is an important part of the company's marketing, but on the corporate balance sheet, it's all cost). It's not a huge cost, but there are real, ongoing costs just to maintain it as-is; adding features ups the ante.
As a reminder: We are coming off a period of 2.5 years when the company had effectively zero revenue, yet they managed to retain virtually all its staff (at more-or-less full salaries and benefits) the entire time -- when many in the travel business went under. While business seems to be brisk this summer, RSE is still digging itself out of a very, very deep cash-flow hole (how quickly we all forget...) so it's more than prudent to keep costs under control. While I would love to see further enhancements to the forum (and I believe one can make the case that there are untapped opportunities to enhance the forum experience that would benefit their business going forward), it is not a high priority for them, at least not right now.
The software running the forum is custom-built (you won't see the same kind of forum anywhere else). That has both benefits and limitations. But adding new features is not something that can be done easily and cheaply (doing that in old code that someone else wrote long ago, is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive...especially if the person who wrote it is no longer available...and any updates usually breaks something that has been working).
With regard to to OP's requests...
Photo hosting here will probably never happen, and it probably shouldn't. Ever. IMHO it's not worth doing, because the cost would become prohibitive. Hosting photos online requires expensive storage space. You have to be as big as Amazon to be able to afford that (literally, Amazon is probably the only company in the world that provides unlimited photo storage, and that's with customers paying a hefty annual fee). Yes, you could allow limited photo hosting, but even that would become a large cost and a large PITA to manage and maintain (believe me, I've worked on public-facing systems that allowed photo storage, where you had a limited quota, and it is a chore to manage). So IMHO the current lack of photo hosting here makes sense.
That does not mean there should never be and can never be photos visible directly within posts...if the photos are hosted elsewhere (many forum systems do that...allow you to embed a link within your post to display an image that's hosted someplace else). It does complicate things (displaying a linked photo can have security and performance impacts). Maybe someday they'll add that feature – you can be sure they have considered it and evaluated how big of a task it would be.
Most of the other requests I see posted here can already be accomplished, though often indirectly.
The forum is what it is. It's fine to ask for enhancements. Just keep in mind the "mom-and-pop" nature of the business, and know that staff already have a wish-list for new/improved features that probably already includes anything you're asking about. Another request won't hurt, but it probably won't move the needle much either.
Cheers.
