I think it all comes down to that little tab at the top - called "community".
It's not possible to feel like part of a "community" that is the size of the WORLD, with all of the different interests, styles, and products contained within.
Store sites like this one have successful communities because we're all bonded together by our common likes (the designers here!) and styles (more "traditional"), and the community is appropriately sized so that we all feel like we really know and care about each other. When we post layouts, we get genuine comments. We watch each others' kids grow. It's that feeling of being apart of something that has drawn us all here, IMHO.
Which is probably why blogs and FB have emerged - now they serve the purpose of being "informed", vs what we get here, which is community
