just on the sidelines here as I've got my own club, but the flighty way the car club was handled here has been a trainwreck (how's that for mixing transportation).
What should have been done is made sure there was room enough for whomever wanted to join. Which would have meant making more than one club. Say, NeoGAF M, NeoGAF R, NeoGAF S (in reference to popular sport division badging in makes like BMW, Mercedes, Honda, etc). Then everyone joins whichever of the three clubs they want...heck, the 'community leaders' should have agreed to split themselves up between the three clubs so that one doesn't become the 'popular clique'. 300 spaces would have been more than enough to ensure that there was still room for the AUS and EU releases.
In a month or two, when the initial rush has died down, THEN you consolidate the clubs into one.
Pretty sure it's too late to do this now, as too many people have already been treated like shit by the community elites, but it's just been painful and, really, disappointing to watch.