I generally dislike self-congratulatory threads of this nature, so I'm not going to give out any merits or praise but ten years on the forum and becoming a staff member does deserve some respect, so that much I'll grant you.  Sticking around bitcointalk for that many years is kind of an anomaly I think; most newbies don't form attachments to the forum like you did, and when they get sick of doing bounties or get banned they just disappear.

And yeah, I like the old-school look of the forum too.  It hasn't changed much since I registered in 2015 except for some of the functionalities.  A consistent user interface is something that a lot of companies (ebay is a great example) just don't understand the importance of.  Who wants a website they visit frequently to keep changing appearance and other stuff every month?  Bleh.

It's always been somewhat of a mystery to me how one becomes a staff member.  I know reporting is a factor, but I'm not sure what else Theymos looks for.  Eh, just thinking aloud.