Pricing seems great. One possible addition that seems fair is this: If a forum is started at a lower tier (for example, if I pay you $50 to start an electronic music forum w/ moderation power), the forum should automatically upgrade to the next tier once you've received enough Beneficiary Rewards to cover the cost.

I completely agree, I just didn't want to promise this for the initial release and that part's not completely built. I left some more thoughts along these lines on the comment by @bryan-imhoff and I think between everything that's been said now I have a pretty clear direction on getting it implemented at some point, regardless of the initial pricing.

I definitely think having a way for users to upgrade their forums organically through the system makes a ton of sense.

Yes!! As a long-time steemian in the top 500 users by reputation score, I feel like I could be a prime candidate to be a "beta tester" for the new forum model. If you think I'm a good fit, I would love to talk with you about this.

We should definitely talk then! I'm not ready yet, but will be within days. Today I'm going to try and engage with this post as much as possible and do a bit of development work - but maybe we can chat more directly about it very soon.

I didn't have responses to your other answers but to say thank you hah.