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That was part of our growth hypothesis too. That most large new forums are created as a result of schisms or division within existing fora, and so we should be there... easy to use, quick to set up, when that time came.
We have one splinter group from another cycling forum, but as they're currently opting to be stealth (private forum) to avoid the inevitable politics that come from being a splinter group... it's not yet growing fast even though it has a solid core.
It currently resembles a standard, small, new forum as per the stats above: ~5 concurrent users most days.
Velocio
True - but are any of them from breakaways/splinter groups?
I have seen it happen on several forums (mostly HiFi / AV related) where a core, key set of users get pissed off with the administration so setup on their own, often taking a large user base with them.
If you can somehow make these key "players" aware of the existence of microcosm and its ease of setup then I think you could grab a large number of users quite quickly.
A lot of forums use google ads - could you take out a small test campaign to target getting adds on forums along the lines of "microcosm: create your own awesome, mobile friendly forum in under 5 minutes, for free! "
If it works, this has the benefit of not requiring a migration but still having a strong initial userbase...