Erik Mona said:
In general we're shying away from repeating Ecologies.
Why? You know your readership better than we could, but is a given reader who says "I'd really like some more flavor on the stirge" really going to a) figure out what issue the stirge ecology appeared in and b) be able to track it down?
Especially given the dramatic changes so many monsters have gone through over the years, it hardly seems that one article could say it all about most of them. That theory clearly isn't used for, say, making rogues sneakier or better dungeon tactics or making druids more viable in a dungeon, although I have to say those all tend to have a great deal of sameness about them once the fourth or fifth iteration is published.
Why not have not have a five year hiatus on certain critters, but after that, they're fair game? Speaking as a reader since the double digit issue number days, while we don't need an annual article on goblins, neither do we need to rest on what, say, Roger E. Moore wrote before many current readers were even born.
If nothing else, many of the more interesting ecology articles could be sliced more finely, providing more topics for the future. "Wolf-Riders of the Goblin Plains" could adapt real world horse nomad tactics to D&D goblins. "Dragon Cults of the Kobolds" (the ecology article I once thought to submit) could detail the religious schism between the Kurtulmak worshippers and the dragon worshippers, "Stone Gardens of the Basilisks" could discuss what the heck basilisks do with these petrified victims and how adventurers could look on those leavings and use them to help survive an encounter themselves.
But if you are going to start ruling out critters as article subjects in perpetuity, any chance you could add elves, including drow, to that list?
