Thank you David, for your most encouraging words and all your good work during your time as webmaster. I feel proud to be allowed to take over the helm, and, as you rightly mention during a period where we have the fullest support of the IT team and a dedicated site owner, who, like all of us here is above all a ship lover and not a business man who likes to make a profit out of Shipspotting. He has has other and very successful ways for that.
You do mention in your post the thorny subject of deletions. The main thorns though have been taken away by introducing two subtle but very effective measures. The "considered for deletion category" is now only visible to admins and the photographer who posted the targeted shot. This allows the admins to quietly discuss with the photographer the reasons for deletion and to offer help in case these reasons can be mitigated. There are no longer public discussions of "users vs admins" that sometimes even went personal. This change has actual been a condition for me to accept responsibility for making deletions. I do not want to be subject in public discussion. The second change is that admins and photographer can enhance existing photos, without having to post them as a new photo, so keeping the number of views and the comments with the original shot. I do help several photographers in enhancing their shots (especially digitised analogue shots) before posting, but since this latter change I simply look at what they post and then enhance these if necessary.
Under these new "conditions" work has been pleasant, and probably not as time consuming as it used to be. I hope to able to continue in this way in future years, going up to 4 millions shots in no time.