They're trying to get people talking about their community site, which is fair enough and I can't really blame them for that. But I think they've missed an important point:
Professional engineers work on projects which are confidential. We can't talk about them in public.
If a customer hires me to design a board, as helpful as it might be to post questions about it on an internet forum, doing so is an absolute no-no. Even if it were possible to leave out essential technical details - which, of course, are always needed to get a useful answer to a question - imagine how you'd feel if you'd hired an "expert" to solve a problem and then found that "expert" asking about it on the internet.
It's not good business.
This, of course, is why we have manufacturer support, field apps engineers, and non-disclosure agreements. The industry is pretty good at solving problems, and when we need help, professional engineers can go straight to the people who really should have access to definitively accurate information.
Forums are great for sharing general techniques, and for talking about non-commercial and open projects - but most of Farnell's customers are businesses, and we can't just talk about whatever stuff we're working on.
That, IMHO, is why e14's community area won't ever take off.