I visit classifieds and amp forum. Occasionally I'll check out the electric guitar forum, seems to be good people there too. Brian is right though, lots of drama and hostility (lack of a better word) between different boards and even other members. There are good people over there, some know their shit and give great insight... while some give ill advice or spurt nonsense just to babble or to throw a good thread off course.
H-C gets very good traffic and can be a good place if you can find a circle of real musicians or gearheads who sincerely want to talk musical equipment and music related stuff.
IMO, Harmony-Central was a lot better about a year ago when they didn't have moderators (or if they did, they didn't intervene much). Now it seems like they like to flex their muscles and show their power (by giving unwarranted bans to those who don't derserve), while showing favoritism to certain people who should get the ban.
About 6 months ago, I read someplace that H-C is owned by musiciansfriend.com. Therefore, H-C can build their site (and traffic) with bottomless pockets, while smaller gearhead forums,(like Gear-Monkey) have to do it the old fashioned way. The fun part about smaller forums, is the community being built is more of a special and personal bond (hell, I pretty much know everything about Briand and still learning more daily)
. At the end of the day, I like to think of us as a tight niche democracy family.