I think it is not the responsibility for the Etheruem Foundation to run a forum. That is similar to BitcoinTalk.
An "official" forum is a place where the pulse of the community is. Cryptocoins, being decentralized with no leader, needs some way to establish direction. There needs to be some sort of cohesion and the "official forum" is the most important place where community meet.
Also, an "official" forum is a sort of reference point which will always embody the community's shared interest in making a specific cryptocurrency successful.
Ethereum developers decided to shut down the "official" forum 18 months after launch when hundreds of newbies have thosands of new questions every single day. I think this is the first sign that something really wrong is going on...
You realized you just contradicted yourself with the whole cryptocoins are decentralized but they need an official forum part? This is the true form of decentralization separating the central point of information dissemination "forums" from those that have a vested interest "developers". The more independent parts the Ethereum community has, the more truly decentralized it becomes.
This concept of decentralization was even mentioned a few times last year as the end goal, that the official forums were there to help incubate the emergence of Ethereum and give it time to develop and mature, but the end state was to always have these go away and be taken on by an independent party.
This whole $300/month forum thing and Buterin selling 25% of his stake thing are just FUD by people with ulterior motives. For a decentralized coin, these are actually good events as they each further help push Ethereum toward that point.
