a neat member area with enough content and regular updates retains the best.

i worked with a program that had a site that had a neat member area, messy area, then neat again. retention dropped 17% with the messy member area even though there was more content than there had been previously.

and no - they didn't start out to create a messy member area. they paid someone to create a better retaining member area and he made it confusing and with lots of extra graphics and stuff. even i couldn't find stuff without searching