SSIGuy
An Islander Returned
I'll add my two cents for what its worth. Some context - again, for what its worth - I've been involved in website design and development as my sole profession for almost 25 years now - and I own a small but highly successful agency who work on fairly complex projects with budgets often in the 6 figures.
I think watchers have spoken pretty clearly that there's not much desire from them for an overhaul - and I would have probably guessed that before reading this thread. I don't think the demographic you're trying to appeal to needs/wants things to be changed aesthetically. As long as things function relatively well - and the desktop site mostly does - then it's probably time you don't need to invest. Now it is possible to add a fresh coat of paint and not change those fundamentals... I just don't think you need to - and it's not likely to have any impact on your numbers. If that's the goal, you might be better looking at optimizations aimed at SEO (though I have not looked at anything to suggest you do - or don't - need to do that).
However, I will add to a few other comments that I do think the site needs to be made responsive. Having to pinch and zoom to use it is a pain (and you're getting dinged by Google for not being responsive). Maybe some user's eyes are still sharp enough that they don't need to do that - but a lot aren't.
Making the site responsive doesn't mean the desktop site needs to change at all. You just need to have an experienced front end dev work through the CSS and optimize it for handheld devices - and possibly some minor tweaks to the views.
I think watchers have spoken pretty clearly that there's not much desire from them for an overhaul - and I would have probably guessed that before reading this thread. I don't think the demographic you're trying to appeal to needs/wants things to be changed aesthetically. As long as things function relatively well - and the desktop site mostly does - then it's probably time you don't need to invest. Now it is possible to add a fresh coat of paint and not change those fundamentals... I just don't think you need to - and it's not likely to have any impact on your numbers. If that's the goal, you might be better looking at optimizations aimed at SEO (though I have not looked at anything to suggest you do - or don't - need to do that).
However, I will add to a few other comments that I do think the site needs to be made responsive. Having to pinch and zoom to use it is a pain (and you're getting dinged by Google for not being responsive). Maybe some user's eyes are still sharp enough that they don't need to do that - but a lot aren't.
Making the site responsive doesn't mean the desktop site needs to change at all. You just need to have an experienced front end dev work through the CSS and optimize it for handheld devices - and possibly some minor tweaks to the views.