No knock on Google or anything, which is still great for finding
top-level web pages, but it seems that lately the most *useful*
answers to questions I have have come from searching subject-specific
message boards. Independent reviews and discussions from enthusiasts
in particular subject areas seem to flourish here, especially if the
boards are well-moderated.

A few examples...
1) After fruitless searches for a manual for a "Bendix WDB 1043"
washed/dryer unit, a friend who *just happened to know* about a
laundry-related message board
(http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/laundry), who not only had some
information about the problem I was experiencing, but, after a few
hours, was able to produce a copy of the long-out-of-print manual.
2) After much unsuccessful research into finding colored replacement
"bezels" for my Motorola v70 cellular phone, again, a different friend
clued me into an amazing cell-phone message board
(http://howardforums.com) that had TONS of information I couldn't seem
to find anywhere else.

So now I'm in a position where I have to find reviews on Digital Asset
Management tools for my company, and I've literally spent days doing
generic Google searches and poring through "official" PDFs and "data
sheets" made by the manufacturers, who are obviously never going to
deliberately contrast their own strengths & weaknesses, and I'm
thinking that perhaps there is a message board that may deal with
graphics people with experience with these kinds of systems, and it
starts to bother me that there doesn't seem to be any way to find
them. "Logical" Google searches (including terms like "digital asset
management", "forum", "message board", "dam", etc) did not turn up any
such boards, but at the same time, I could not find the boards I
listed in my 2 examples from Google either, and they proved to be
priceless in answering my questions. It seems like these places are
like the hidden, unindexed, VIP rooms of the internet, and I want in!

So... at the risk of having gone fully nutzo describing my question...
how does one find subject-related forums/messageboards? (why does
something tell me the answer is going to be found on a
"web-search-enthusiasts" message board?)

As a matter of fact, Google Answers Researchers have a private forum
where we discuss, among other things, questions, and searching
techniques.

Your question did come up and one of our premier Researchers:
"pinkfreud," suggested this resource for you:

BoardReader
http://www.boardreader.com/

Sometimes it's just dogged determination and a refusal to quit that
finally gets results. FOr instance, these search strings below, used
at Google's main page get a lot of results:

"Digital Asset Management" tools review (3,510 results)
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22Digital+Asset+Management%22+tools+review

"Digital Asset Management" tools reviews (added the "S" --filtered to
1,810 results)
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22Digital+Asset+Management%22+tools+reviews

Maybe something you need is there, the first few looked
semi-promising, but I don't have a clue about the subject myself and
can't tell. Just passing this along in an attempt to be helpful.

~~Cynthia