I had always pictured this coming site as being a sort of sister site to what qcdn is right now. I'm glad to hear that's actually going to be more or less true. Regarding how I think that site should be structured, I've created an image (see spoiler tag below). It may actually represent a nice portal / splash page for the site, in that users can select which part of the site they'd like to go to based on what game, if any they wish to discuss.
With respect to a few issues:
1. Mass unbanning & reset of all stats: I like this idea on some level, but not entirely. I'm all far giving some people who were simply being retards / drunk posting / had a bad day a second chance. However, for those people who made it their business to be absolute pricks, I believe they should remain banned.
My preference on a stats reset would be only having them be reset on the XIV site, and keeping them as they are for the XI site.
2. Inclusion / exclusion of the Flameboard: Aside from (at times) being a source of entertainment, this board has also given us the opportunity to warn each other about people like the asshats mentioned in point #1. I believe it would be a mistake to get rid of that all together. If you don't want it to be a flameboard, make it a place *only* to warn others about players to avoid, and have it be required that there are screenshots to substantiate claims. That way there's no back and forth he said she said crap for us to sift through. Honestly I do enjoy the drama on the flameboard when the flame doesn't suck, so my preference would be to keep it as is.
As for a waiting period before this forum becomes available, I say maybe. If it's decided that there be a waiting period, I wouldn't make it too long. There's sure to be people who will capitalize on a fresh start.
3. Where to put off-topic content: There's actually a very simple solution to this. Since off-topic stuff really has nothing to do with either FFXI or FFXIV, we can have both sites (XIV & XI) link to the off topic forums, even if we end up hosting them on the FFXIV site. I suggest keeping them a bit separate as you can see in the image, but hosting them on the XIV site and having the XI site re-direct to the new location should be a reasonable solution to keeping off-topic forums on both sites.
4. Consolodation of FFXI forums: I honestly don't think enough people will be leaving FFXI by the time the new XIV site launches to justify consolodating all of our present FFXI forums/sections into a single forum within the XIV site. Maybe in time, but for now I suggest doing some minor forum removals and playing it by ear.
5.What URL should be used: All I can really say about this is that those staying in XI would likely appreciate keeping the present url we use for QCDN. I suggest doing that, then having a second URL more aligned with what we use for the XIV site point to QCDN as well. See the included image for other URL suggestions (I like the eod.org idea too, though things may get way more complicated than they are for QCDN if we start inviting multiple servers to schedule events, flame, sell items, etc.).
Site structure image (will be quite large for those of you using an 800x600 resolution):