I say this on many thread over and over.
I would suggest that you all agree to a few simple ideas to start with, itemise them, present them in a business type format and he will most likely be more amenable to listening.
The main reason he doesn`t update isn`t because he`s lazy or any of the things that get said, yes he probably has little time these days, but his primary reason has always been that there are so many complaints when he does.
So start and get together somewhere a forum here or irc, or msn anything skype even pick a few small points to start with, agree on them petition it if you wish, get those changed, move on to some larger things once you have his attention and prove to him that you are all able to agree on the changes and won`t start spamming him with hate mail when its not the way you want.
and yes i`ve read his hate mail i used to have to read a lot of his private messages for him in game, and from teh spacefed server when i was admin, not sure if they still do that but belial, viper, freakn and i were forwarded pretty much everything so we know what kind of hate mail he got, and how ugly it could be.
I understand the addiction and the passion involved in trying to stop something you`ve loved and spent so much time on from dying, you don`t want to see your lives wasted, even if it is just a game.
I`m not picking fault at this stage since there is no point no one cares or listens to that.
My only advice is as i`ve said get together not just a random petition to fix the game, but some specific points to give him a starting place, you`ll have a far better reaction.
Treat him nicer than you would your own friends or family inteh mail be polite and not disrespectful have someone go over it after its drafted to ensure that its not all hate fulled even if you think you`ve hidden it.
Because one thing i know for a fact is if you send him random hate mail he completely ignores it and you`ll be told it must have gone to his spam