Thanks Cecilia! Your answer confirmed my expectations. It's perfectly understandable that literary discussions, especially detailed ones, aren't exactly all the rage around here. :) I think most people come to Elliquiy primarily to RP or to socialize, I suppose, and not to strain their brains dissecting each other's writing. Then again, with all the gifted writers and dedicated readers and generally smart, friendly folks on the site, it seems a shame that there isn't any continuously-active venue for literary discussion at Elliquiy, even on a small scale.
What spurred this whole line of thinking and questioning from me now was a
thread started by a more recent joiner of Elliquiy over in the Literary Discussion section. She was encouraging people generally to make more comments in the Storytelling Forum, as a way of spurring overall activity over there. The response to her well-intentioned plea has been somewhat lackluster thus far, I think, and I suspect that's for an obvious, innocent reason -- people are just occupied with other things on the site, or other things in general.
I've never been motivated to try to join the EWG in part because I guessed that it was largely inactive anyway, but mostly because I don't like the idea that it's only available to certain members and not to everyone else. I've got more than 1000 posts by now, I think, but I remember seeing that "500 post minimum" rule back when I was a new member, and frankly, it made me feel excluded at the time. I suspect that for the EWG or any similar group to actually become more continuously active, it would require the help of some enthusiastic fledgling members (like Isobel, from that thread above), ones who haven't become jaded about the quixotic nature of their efforts.
Nowadays I have just enough time and interest to become an infrequent participant in preexisting, ongoing discussions. Although I've tried before, I no longer have the will or energy to initiate such discussions myself, and I think that's what would be necessary -- for a small handful of Elliquians to participate in active discussions over a prolonged period of time, long enough so that the activity would become more popular and self-perpetuating on the site.
I'll keep an eye out, though, to see if anyone else manages to accomplish that task in the future, and then contribute as much as I can. Anyway, thanks for reading and for helping me to stay abreast of things. :)