Wish you could half-like a post
I'm all in favor of forward progress, and I'm a web dev by trade, so I may be able to help; more on that below.
But I'd like to see what folks think are the squeaky wheels in the site's functionality or UI, as opposed to the content users have put up.
The one big one I heard here so far is the ability to upload Blocks. What else do folks think is important? I have some ideas myself, don't have time to detail them now, but they're not incredibly important IMO.
What are the drivers for starting over, rather then enhancing what's there?
When you talked with Cliff about this, did he indicate he was willing to provide access to the existing data and uploads, either to clone it for a new app, or to let a new app read and modify it directly (which would have to be done very carefully to maintain compatibility with both apps until the new one is live)?
Were you talking about making the existing code for the site open source, or creating something new from scratch?
As far as me helping beyond kibitzing here, on the back end I'm mostly ColdFusion/Lucee, which isn't exactly a hot topic these days, though it is actually pretty good. (To be clear, I REALLY don't want to derail this into a discussion of its merits, or Adobe's, or the Lucee Foundation. If anyone is considering actually using it for this, cool, I have decades of experience, but if not, let's just leave that be. I'm open to spinning up on other tech too, and have a smidgeon of experience in some.)
I also have long experience in SQL, JS, CSS and HTML, a well as architecture and interaction design. My long unused business cards say "Work process tools for humans".