I like your ideas Noble. TWC is going the way of .Org but it's not there yet. I believe there is still time to save the forum before it crosses that point of no return. I look at past posts on this forum and how many times have you guys seen the "Old Guard" leave and the "newer" guys finally step up and TWC keeps going? I know one day TWC might finally die out, but as long as Total War games are still being made, there's no reason why the forum can't survive another 5 years (maybe even another 10) at the very least, but, that is of course, if the members want it to last that long?
I think the only time you'll (and us) will see TWC truly die out and have us wake up one day with a "We're shutting down at the ending of the month/year" type of message is when 1 of two things happens:
1. Total War games stops being produced. Unless TWC adapts to a new game series (e.g. BF,COD....) people will leave. Modders and their followers first, then us soon after (due to boredom, IRL issues, etc.....). So when that happens, probably 3 years I give TWC before you see it tank. If you have to change it to Battlefield Center (BFC) or Call of Duty Central (CoDC) then so be it.
2. If people right now truly don't care. If no one steps up now, the decline will keep going, and what I said in point 1 will happen a lot sooner.
Make it fun again for everyone. It seems like TWC used to be the type of forum it was so big, you could be on it for 5-10 years active, and still had people on the forum who don't even know who you were. Not that you didn't post, but because there was so much to do. Make it fun for modders again, for political debates (civil of course), for regular random chat (TD), Coliseum and so on. Push the Site Awards, make it mean something to the members instead of being a colorful badge/ "cool" contest. Same thing with being on staff, make it fun and useful so people want to contribute.