Strongly approve this. I think it might actually be a good idea for Meetups to get their own section that is prominent on the main site (moreso than the regular sidebar) but still off to the side where it doesn't take up our primary real estate. I think it's important to showcase our ability to create physical communities. But not at the expense of the main site.
The number of meetup announcements on the main blog has been increasing. Though it's reasonable to try to get meetups high visibility to increase the chance that people who are nearby see the announcement, the posts themselves are content-free.
How difficult would it be to, instead of promoting meetup announcements, tag them "meetup" and put a "meetups" section in the sidebar, similar to "recent comments" or "recent posts"?