Hey everyone:
The NOC is presently [at the time of posting] taking the server down to do the RAM install. They’ve asked us to allow for up to four hours of downtime to install the RAM, but it should be done in 30 minutes or so. I’ll update this when it’s back online, assuming I’m still awake.
Wow, that was fast.
After discussing things with Mark and with the sales and technical support at our NOC, I have placed an order to double the RAM on-board the machine. Our big issue at present is that our present load routinely maxed out the RAM and put us into using swap space on the hard drive; any of us who’ve used a computer that was RAM-poor know how those machines tend to crawl. Multiply the number of users by 100, and … yeah.
Yes, our costs will go up. It’s manageable. A second server is still an option, but the doubling there would be in the monthly server rental cost, not the RAM. 
That gets a little more fiscally painful. I don’t think we have the userbase to merit that at present, and unfortunately, I have just the one uncle, and he’s healthy and quite middle-class.
I’ll post ASAP as far as an update on when the RAM install will happen. I’m hoping that we can schedule it for today and I can re-open the Rumor Forum, which I have presently taken offline.
Mark did some more digging and found another cause of the issue. SMF and Firefox look equally at blame, but we want to thank the SMF folks for getting a fix out there. This solves my concerns about DDoS, but we’re still in need of the RAM for sure.
All:
As you all know, or server downtime issues continue to grow. I believe that, at this point, part of the issue is that we’re exceeding the capacity of the server to meet the demand we’re throwing at it. I’m exploring options to procure a second machine to alleviate some of the load. We’re also looking to see if we can fill the server’s RAM capacity out more to provide more resources, as it looks like we’re constantly running into swap on the HD at this point.
I appreciate your continued patience.
I am presently rebooting the server in an attempt to remove the instability from continued hammering by outside forces.
I’m doing some modifications to Apache at the moment. Server load will be up, and there is a small chance of Apache downtime. I’ll stay on top of it!
Complete!