>Started to happen around then for me, but has certainly come to the fore over the past year or so.

Yep, a few started seeing the potential of building the network in a more healthy manner and it has worked, considering what else has happened concurrently. 

>I'm not too keen on being dubbed a community leader, but will accept 'community node' 

I agree, leader sounds far too formal and centralized, node or hub is more of an opt-in community centre :)

>Argh, I'll have a look for some data then :)

I don't know where to start with this one.