I agree that arbitrary notability guidelines (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:MUSIC) are a waste of time. All that's really needed is the primary notability criterion: something "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Though, even the primary criterion isn't necessary; it's just a way of saying that something meets Wikipedia's verifiability policy.

Possibly of interest is the appeal that Jimmy Wales wrote and has been featured on one of the banners. Apparently this particular site notice was particularly effective: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2008/12/30/fundraiser-jimmys-appeal/

Maybe most edits by QUANTITY are generated by anonymous users, but the actually GOOD articles are generated by people who actually sit down and take a bunch of hours to research/write/edit. You don't get something fairly reliable, readable, and well-organized by having a hundred different anonymous editors each contribute a sentence. That isn't to say there aren't valuable anonymous editors, just that when people start contributing quality information regularly, they tend to register for the sake of convenience.

Big is the new small.http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01bjeffreys. phtml/