Another thought for new players, young and old alike.
I played SFC for a long time. And was very familliar with all aspects of it. And I still found all the patching, installing shiplists, setting router ports, etc., etc., to be irritating in the extreme.
Any new player to this game, on seeing the number of steps required to actually be able to play, might very well never cross the threshold. Maybe a stickied forum post saying, "New Player? Check in here to get a helpful mentor!" Just some names and email addresses for people to contact to get one on one help with getting everything set up. Having someone on Teamspeak or, for that matter, on the telephone, to walk a new player through all the many hoops and hurdles might keep any that show up here around for a while.
Respects...