E2 has been around so long the internet lapped it.
It started at a time where you needed to know HTML to get your text out there, and was radical for lowering that requirement. Now it's a moderated, secure-ish, yet free and very public forum which serious writers use to hone their craft, and it's radical for that combination of seriousness and fairly flat hierarchy. Outside our walled garden, any asshat with an iPhone can troll anyone, and they do, prolifically. Subsequently, the era of public comments threads on websites has begun to end. The post-comments step isn't clearly defined, but it probably looks a lot like E2: semi-anonymous, semi-public, intolerant of abuse, safe-ish.
So, my $0.02: Play to your strengths, E2. Improve the ability to communicate within the site, privately and publicly. To offer feedback, critique, and revision. Be a space where writers can write; can enjoy writing; can get better at writing. Be the smokey pre-video-phone comedy club to a generation of Dave Chappelles, if you will.