Peter, I agree with what you said mostly.
I think that 8static has been and continues to be an important part of the philly chip music scene. Whether that is for having a show where the philly musicians can play or people can do an open mic or whatever, it has a moderate sized loyal following and pretty consistent attendance.
However, I will agree that people need to reach far beyond just chip music nights, and that's something I've seen a lot in philly. Cheap Dinosaurs regularly performs with various other local bands; Chipocrite has performed at Labowskifest and several other non chip shows; Ro-Bear, as he has said, has played at frat parties; and Sprinkle Kingdom, at least while Jon Baken was there, made itself host to several shows that were some chip music and some electronica, some rock, some whatever.
Now I have been thinking a low about the end of exclusive chip music nights, and I think for the performers that is something that they need to look at very strongly, and stop using chip nights as a crutch. Musicians (and visualists [myself included]) need to get out there and find non chip shows and get their name out and even just legitimize the aesthetic. However, I would not say that chip music night should stop altogether because the crowd that comes out to these shows comes for the shows that we are putting on. And part of that is that the shows we put on are very different from anything else you will see, both in terms of the performance and the feel of the show.
So while I whole heartedly agree that performers need to branch out and find new ways to get their art seen, we cannot forget about our current fanbase and community who come to these regular chip shows.
((((