yea, that homerec forum can be pretty lame - there's a lot of good info to sift through if you've never been there before, but after that, it's pretty redundant
gearslutz is a totally different story though - that's where a lot of the "big boys" frequent, including guys like bruce swedien. there's also a lot of in-depth discussion not only of gear and techniques, but also mods/upgrades/circuits, and all kinds of other geeky tech stuff.
and, like mentioned before, they have hands-down the best gear classifieds anywhere - i look for shit there before i even attempt checking ebay.