The owner was affected by the Qld floods personally. Having to find somewhere else to live, lack of internet access during that time, workplace being closed for weeks due to be flooded out.
Its my understanding from talking to him that he felt it was time to move onto other more important things in his life.
Certainly at one point when it first went offline due to issues with the hosting company actually providing support, the intention was to move to another host, but more pressing issues with the floods affecting home and work, the site was down longer than anticipated, plus a hate campaign was launched against the owner for his removal of certain forum members when the forum was still running, which resulted in the removed members creating a website for the purpose.
The problems with the upgrade, would not have taken thousands of hours to resolve, it was more a matter of other pressing personal issues, that the owner decided that the site was causing more stress than anything positive so the decision was made to leave it alone.
Those who were members for a long time were well aware the owner suffered from severe depression, and I believe the decision to let it rest instead of reviving it after more than a month offline, was taken for the sake of his health and well being.
At the end of the day, the owner simply decided that Fun In Australia was no longer fun for him.
Its a shame that so much information was lost, but no point in hashing over the reasons why.
I also think that it is not helpful for rumour and inneudno as to the reasons for its closure, unless one has actually spoken to the owner.
cheers
Amy