Thank you for such a warm, heart-felt article about a game I myself have put so much time into. I too remember the near-instant deaths on Fish Hook, when it felt like the sky was falling from dozens of grenades being thrown by the terrorist team. Yeah, I was terrible, but I got the SOCRACK feeling really quickly once I got online. In all my time on Zipper's 'real' SOCOM franchise, I've put around 10,000 hours into the four games. There are tons of forums online now dedicated to games, both past and present, of which I didn't really know existed when SOCOM was still popular. You're right that the community feeling has fallen off in recent years, due to a complete lack of those types of resources in-game. Hopefully we'll get a new SOCOM with the PS4, and if it's good, then that would be enough to make me want to buy it.
Cheers from America.