Steve,
Don't worry about you not noticing the thread - I wrote it some weeks ago, and posted it, but it didn't show up for a few days, and in the meantime I quickly started to doubt whether my question was appropriate. Perhaps it was moderated, and met with similar doubts.
The idea came to me as I read the Dresden Codak website regularly, and some months ago the author announced the donations are enough for him to quit his daily job. I don't think his website took as much work then as yours surely did - besides, it's not about the website, it's about putting ideas together in clever way, in webcomic, in a book, or in a forum post. It's a way to thank someone for being there.
I hope your experiment will be more succesfull than you expect
