Isn't that the part of the arXiv where they send all of the cranks (non-rhetorical question; I really do not know)?

Those are all very good points. In particular, I think they're good reasons to down-vote the question, and I wish the comments to the question had more remarks like your first paragraph, explaining a down-vote, and fewer along the lines of "gossip is bad for MO", since I think the question can be asked without being too gossipy (don't complain, edit the question to emphasize that it's not for gossip!).

I don't think they're good reasons to close it, given the standards that mostly have developed. A case in point: I like the question at hand much more than, say, http://mathoverflow.net/questions/50025/problems-where-we-cant-make-a-canonical-choice-solved-by-looking-at-all-choices . Which is to say, I have nothing against http://mathoverflow.net/questions/50025/, but I don't plan to contribute to it or to read any answers.

Anyway, I don't feel strongly about either question. Like OP, I'm honestly curious to know about distant areas of math from mine, and a good way to hear about them is to ask questions like this one. (Compare all the wonderful popular books, or even more books for undergrads, that take some big trumpeted result like FLT as a way to structure a mathematical story about a number of different areas of research.) But I feel no sadness if the question stays closed.

Moreover, I tend to the pessimistic view that people's enthusiasm for answering vague questions outstrips their judgment, or their care in reading the secondary literature. The format of MO seems - to me - to allow people to keep coming back to these questions later to add answers of diminishing value.

Lastly: in the comment thread on the original, there is some contrast made with other sciences where "if our research might help create better cancer treatment, then we should trumpet this". I really don't like this as a model for mathematics, since the potential for rewarding chutzpah rather than scholarship seems too high. But then I speak as someone marooned out in the uncool backwaters of pure mathematics, so I guess I have obvious biases...

After reading the comments here, I have added a paragraph to the original question urging caution about outing other people. Hopefully this alleviate's Noah's concern; maybe more edits are still necessary. This is (one of) the point(s) of Community Wiki, after all: everyone can improve the question.

I don't understand Andrew Stacey's concern.

In any case, I have cast a second vote to reopen this question. I like this one so much better than most of the CW questions on MathOverflow.

Meaningful answers to this would be of great benefit to everyone.

The purpose of MO is to provide at least one meaningful answer that is of great benefit to the original asker. If this primary purpose gets swamped by "let's try to improve the general lot of (mathematical) man" then it won't survive, and I like that aspect of MO and see no actual benefit in these vague questions.

(That didn't make quite as much sense as it did when the synapses started firing, but I suspect that most people here know my views well enough already to be able to interpolate.)