Isn't the fee mainly to avoid raids and spamming? I wonder if the trolls might have actually moved on to different areas of the internet, so we wouldn't have to worry about them either 
Some of the guests are bots, though, right? It could not be an increase in bots searching for data?
I think that would certainly be a main issue if the registration fee were not in place. If membership were free, many of the automated programmes that are boosting those counts would likely end up posting links to scams and such. In addition to the annoyance this would cause, it'd also likely result in a large amount of extra work for the moderators.
Also, of course, the registration fees (at least in part) are used to support running the site and keeping it free of advertisements.
It is big bugbear to me that the Search function of the forum is a disaster. If I want to find something in the forum, I normally use a web browser (thank you, bots!) instead of the search box in the right-hand top. It shouldn't be like that.
Have you tried to use the "Advanced search" feature? I've found it to be rather straightforward and to work well.
Can attached pics be made visible to everybody?
Sylvia would have to provide the actual answer to this question, but I imagine that that might result in additional server costs. Hosting the images elsewhere moves (some of) that burden away.
