People may be more willing to join the site (including myself) if they had a chance to kick around a trial membership for, lets say, a week.  What do ya think?

It'd probably be more trouble than it's worth for GoatBoy. Just registering lets you access the entire site except archive & team forum. You can access everything else. If it's worth it for you to have a tab called "My active topics" that lists only threads you've posted in, and limitless searching including General Forums, then join up as a team member. It's well worth it to me. Search engine alone has made my team membership worth it.