I agree. I'm trying to find if there are any studies on groups abilities to absorb new members, that might help us decide exactly how much publicity we should aim for. Unfortunately I don't know the proper keywords for this.
You might look for business culture studies. I've seen quoted around various places that apparently (maybe it was McKinsey?) a company can't grow its headcount faster than 5-10% a year without losing the company culture/spirit. (I'm not sure how one could prove that, as all the obvious metrics involve things like surveys and self-reports.)
Recently reporters from two major national magazines contacted me in preparation for doing stories on Bitcoin. This reminded me that Wired magazine did a cover story on the Cypherpunks in its second issue. I think the LessWrong community is already larger and more active than Cypherpunks were back then, and potentially more influential, but there hasn't been much publicity on us. I'm tempted to suggest doing a story on LessWrong to one of the reporters. Is this a good idea, or bad?
More generally, do we want more publicity, and if so what's the best way to go about getting it?
ETA: Would it be bad etiquette to reveal the names of these magazines at this point, or even to say as much as I've said?