What was the thinking behind the demise?

This place used to be alive, man.

It attracted and conducted full interviews with respected homebrew devs.
It was an epicenter for new homebrew and hacking announcements.
It featured thought-out, well-written articles, reviews, and tutorials.
It had a thriving membership (now standing at nearly a half-million) which many people were proud to have associated with even all of these years later.

Slowly

"Interviews" became trivial questions directed at the crowd... i.e. "What do you like and dislike about GP2X?"
Important announcements were just directly copy-pasted from other thriving 3rd party sources.
Articles were supplied by a sea of newsbots.
All that made the site substantial was either automated or disappeared.
The community raised plenty of concern, but were ultimately unheard, gave up, and dispersed.

A few hold-outs, shadowprophet in particular, were still here trying to make pleas 5 years after the site slowed down, and went completely unheard.

I shake my head, wraggster. You built up something truly respectable just to let it all go, and why? No one would have second-guessed it if you had just said you were busy. People were more than willing to contribute to the site, and they were completely ignored. Unless the current format and relevance of DCEmu UK is what you were seeking to establish this whole time, no one will understand the thinking.