The "broader audience" is the other 10.5-15.5 million people they"re looking to draw into their game. Curt and company have said on a number of occasions that they"re seeking to be the biggest, best and better than the rest, including Blizzard and WoW. In order to do that, they not only need to appeal to the core MMO gamer, but gamers of all varieties, and perhaps even non-gamers that enjoy fantasy-style stories. Only a miniscule minority of 38 Studio"s attentive audience is willing to take the plunge no matter what happens to be said now, later and at launch.
As for Curt"s involvement in this thread, a good number of his posts have been a result of engaging with the community, asking questions, starting dialogue and getting a feel for what"s important to the experienced MMO gamer; it hasn"t been a slough of "OMG! This game will be so awesome George Zimmer won"t be able to handle it!!1" posts.
I"m guessing you haven"t been following Project Offset, otherwise you"d realize just how well 38 Studios is handling the fervor over their game, and the PR surrounding it.