at the very beginning we dropped the idea about public forums but later we realised that from public forums we could get lots of ideas for MMT from other fans plus it always would encourage us to continue.And, if I was you, I would open a forum just for the patch and mod. Because it is always so - if you don't talk about something really much, people lose interest about it and forget it soon.
What about me, I hope you can finish the 1.4 patch and start to work on the mod.
Btw, the new area ... will it be Framon (if it's not a secret)?