Wow

you're so...
Hmm, excuse-me, but I don't know what to say after those words, because I totally fail to understand why you felt the need to say the, totally irrelevant, "old enough" part.
I mean, I'm older than microprocessors, and I come from a part of the world that had a whole public networks that don't needed to own more than a dedicated terminal. A time where forums were displayed on a 40x25 lines screens, designed with 8 colors. A time where there were nothing more than the 128 ASCII characters to handle everything you'll see on the screen, even if for the few home computers that existed, and obviously also no mouses.
It also mean that I'm older that HTTP protocol, old enough to have known the time where "forums", when applied to internet, were a colorless plain text thing that needed a dedicated software to be accessed.
And you know what? This change absolutely nothing to what I said, nor does it mean that I'm nostalgic from those times and want forums to still looks, and acts, like one or the other forms I knew. This simply because being "this old" also mean that I'm not stupid to the point to not acknowledge that different technologies imply different possibilities and behaviors. Like it also mean that I know the difference between "useless" and "none mandatory"...
Useless, no, because it ease one's use of the forum, at least the really few times where (s)he need to access the information revealed when doing this.
Yet, this doesn't change the fact that it's, totally, absolutely, without a single doubt, and at 100%, a none mandatory feature.
Please, don't assume what I like and want. You're as bad at this, than you are at assuming what VNDB users all like and want.
I'm
not responsible for the red sparkling way my username is represented. It came one day, and I have no fucking clue when, nor why; I just assume that it happened when I had one of my badges, but don't even noticed it before, months fater I got the last one, someone asked for a way to not see those kind of effects on usernames, and pointed that mine was among those effects that he dislike.
I'll not say that I dislike it, but this don't imply that I like it. It just mean that I'm totally indifferent to this purely meaningless and useless feature that artificially draw the attention on something relatively irrelevant, one's username. The badges being already enough to highlight the possible "qualities" (quoted because relative) of one member, and at least they don't do it artificially.
Because, as old as you want to present yourself, you care more about the form than about the substance; this whatever because you're still really young, or just easily fascinated.
And, you see, the reason why people like VNDB the way it is, is because they are at the opposite of you. They care about the substance more than about the form. And it happen that VNDB's sober design is perfectly adapted to this, deprived of artificial effects that would distract your attention from the information that matters to you on the page you've in front of your eyes.
As I said, competition exist, and it's the other thing that you missed so far in what people told you; the first one being why people like VNDB the way it is.
Yes, the other VN database I listed aren't as complete as VNDB. But it's not by mean, it's by necessity. Would one of them have at least 10% of VNDB traffic, they would grow to keep that traffic growing and increase their relevance on the VN community.
But they don't have 10% of VNDB traffic, they are anecdotal not by choice, but by fact. And it would be the exact same with the competitor you wish for. It would be almost totally deprived of traffic for months, then needs years before starting to be actually known. Then, and only then, if you are right and people actually want a more modern VNDB, and only if your are right, it would starts to become a competitor for VNDB.
But the truth here is that you don't care what people tell you. You opened your thread asking a question, but your intent was just to have your opinion confirmed. And this make you discard all divergent opinion without even taking the time to think about it.
Look at your posts in that thread. Nothing that have been said to you is valid, all of your posts can be summarized with just one word, "no!".
In your eyes, whoever do not agree with you is either someone who don't know what he talk about, or someone younger than you, and therefore not smart enough, not as well aware of the reality than you are... Someone who need to know how old you are, because it's important, that age and experience of yours is the only authority argument you have in your sleeve, what you expect as having a "shut the fuck up and let adults do the talk" effect. Too bad for you, you used it with a grumpy asshole grandpa like me...