I think your ideas, though they may seem nice in theory, may not be so good
in practise.  for a start, i agree with mammon_ that your policy seems to be
discouraging crackers from writing essays, which would be done only by the
superior crackers, totally cutting off newbies, beginners (and intermediate)
crackers... for example, i have recently cracked an interesting target which
uses a tough serial algorithm based on a seed key.  i thought this would
have made an excellent essay to discuss how algos based on seed keys work...
however now i'm not so sure.

Also the idea of using old software though logical in theory isn't all that
good because nobody cracks old software.  software authors always have and
always will be damaged... most (all) of the essays's targets on your site
have been cracked by "scene" crackers, the cracks are already available, the
damage has already been done.  the last place "zombies" look for cracks is
on fravia.org... and if authors ever happen to stumble accross your site
(and if they're serious) then they can learn and make a tougher protection
next time round so your site only helps to enhance their future protections.

I think your idea of no longer accepting beginner essays was good, but so
far you have failed miserably in your bid to uphold this policy, as i have
seen numerous beginner essays since my "last beginners approach..." essay.
if you can show that you are seriously no longer going to publish beginner
essays, this will also help to filter out the "useless(!)" essays that you
refer to in your "radical plans".  although you may be bored to death with
keygen essays etc, some of us aren't, for example some of my definate
favorite essays on this site are the essay by Indian_trail on winrar, on
test4 by Croock and on the "laying eggs" target by Kox... not everyone is
interested in finding out the significance bethind the mm2048 and mm256.dll
files ;)

Another thing you may want to encourage is essay style... writing the "guts"
of your essay in the main body of the text, and referring the reader to the
assembly listing in the appendix of the essay.  this will also focus the
attention more on "genericness" and less target-specificness.  i find
nothing more boring than an introduction followed immediately by screeds of
asm code and some occasional cryptic(!) comments by the reverser. clarity
of style, and how easy an essay is to understand should also be stressed.
note: i will demonstate use of an appendix in the next essay i send you
(awaiting your confirmation "master" :) and also the idea of explaining the
protection to bring away the target-specific focus... however i think a
target is still important, so that reversers can practice for themselves
what has been preached.

Anyway i definately feel your current attitude is very demoralising to the
beginner/intermediate cracker... and contributions to the site would
dramatically decrease, and people may start losing interest in your site.
if you think that your "policy" will encourage people to concentrate more on
reversing kernels and investigating the hidden activities by microsoft then
i believe you are wrong, this attitude will just switch people off immediately.

I think you should definately be more strict on what essays you accept, but
to totaly remove all "cracking" essays would be a bad move... to generate
interest you must maintain these essays too.

If you are definately not interested then i think mammon_'s suggestion of a
new site is far more appropriate than modifying the look and feel of this
current site.but nobody likes to read old stuff :), and if you maintain the
interest of your reader and at the same time publish some quality and
well-explained essays about the topics you like then crackers of today will
become interested in these topics too (maybe :).. but as i said earlier if
you simply cut off all of these "useless" essays fravia.org might shrivel
and die :(

Finally the most important point is everyone knows your site is the best
cracking site on the net, it's what gives me and other crackers motivation
to write essays - so that we know many others will be reading it, i know its
your site and you can do what you want, but your site has become a cracker's
home over the years, if you decide to proceed with your "radical plans" then
you are letting everyone down.

                 cheers,

                 prophecy.

ps : let me know if i should bother writing this essay i had in mind...