I have never been too keen on venue being decided AT the PC the week before. This is an online community, and the community should get a say in where it's gonna be, even if they were not able to make it the week before (like maybe they had a kids soccer game to attend or something)
Perhaps the happy medium would be for the week before group to come up with 3 or 4 ideas for places and then make a poll. that way everyone feels like they have a little bit of a say in the matter. Empower the peeps.
I think that we do scare some people off. And I don't believe that "well, too bad, we don't want them there anyway" is a good answer. I'm not saying it should be a family affair, or a mountaineers sized gathering. I do think it would be fun to have some new faces around, and/or some of the old faces back. Zeeks for the underagers now and then was a nice break from the usual barscene. One slide show a quarter is a nice number to shoot for.