[prawn]

Ads don't make much and forums can be a bit of a pain, so the owner is likely just trying to recoup something for the historic hassles. If monetisation is not ads, it's subscriptions and a site owner can be reluctant to foist costs on regular users (who've contributed a lot of content).

Their reluctance to fix issues could be lack of time or wariness of breaking something and creating more work. The reluctance to sell could be because they don't know how to price it and don't want to regret selling it. In many instances, a web property is something you've dreamed of making bigger and you'd hate to give it up only to watch someone else take it further.

Scraping might just invite a legal hassle. I gather that this is the not the route you're interested in, but personally I'd suggest trying to find a casual way to trade messages with the owner, find out their pain points and go from there. There would likely be a path where they can maintain some control but get help and relinquish the stranglehold.