I think we can all agree that stories like Boatmurdered, Ardentdikes, Failcannon are fun to read. What makes them so fun? It's the fact that they're run by a number of players who each get one year. That's important for two reasons - it gives the fortress a schizophrenic, chaotic feel, and it prevents the players from getting too attached to the fort. Lets be honest: when you take over a fort for a year and a towering humanoid made of gold comes up the stairs and starts kicking dwarves left and right, you laugh and enjoy trying to save the fort. When the same thing happens in a fort you've carefully nurtured for fifteen years, and that's your legendary weaponsmith exploding against the wall over the body of your starting miner, you curse and reach for ctrl-alt-del. In other words, DF produces the best results when passed around.
Unfortunately, I think the present system for succession forts, as they're known, is pretty primitive. Forum threads get the job done, but I think it could be done much better by a separate interface, to which turn orders, save files, fortress maps and text and picture updates are uploaded.
This isn't necessarily a call on Toady to do this - I think he's busy enough as it is, and should concentrate on DF. I think that the modding community might be able to pull this off - after all, they've given us tilesets and Dwarf therapist and the like. I personally don't know the first thing about modding, but would it be possible? And is it a good idea?