Just got the Royal rank - 2500 points :)
Woop woop!
HP's ITRC forum is a great place to learn more, help out :)
For me the primary reason is to remember the things I learnt while working at the support, because I do not work with hardware in that respect anymore it's incredible how fast this kind of stuff is forgotten, at least the specifics :/
I hope the ITRC won't change into something crap after the move to another forum system now in the summer.