I guess my biggest surprise is that so many of us are on the same wavelength about certain things. Cave shooters, Megami Tensei, Nippon Ichi, Wizardry, SNK fighters... Doesn't matter what it is, there's always at least one or two people who get really excited about the same stuff that I do. Most other sites, or people I meet here in the city, give me looks like, "What are you talking about???" if I mention anything that's not part of a mainstream franchise.
The other is the collective maturity of people here. We may disagree sometimes, but it's very rare I see people mumbling console war nonsense back and forth, flaming each other, or writing like they don't have a clue. The majority of us know our stuff, and respect each other's knowledge and enthusiasm, which is honestly something that I find so rare, that this is literally the ONLY forum I'm willing to post in. Of any kind.