great post. i like couchsurfing and i've had mostly positive experiences.
apparently they deliberately wanted to distantiate themselves from the "couch"/hosting theme - hence the new logo (they redesigned their logo from couch & earth globe to what's supposed to be a "path" symbol) since they had users who cannot host but are still interested in meeting other couchsurfers.
about the gender issue - here's what happened to me when i visited egypt two years ago.
i logged in to couchsurfing because i wanted to change my couch status to "i'm traveling" (to let potential travelers know that i couldn't host at the moment). without knowing it or explicitly stating where i'm traveling, my profile must've appeared in some "people near you" part of the site - within 24 hours i had received nine contact requests from guys wanting to meet or marry(?!) me. i don't know. it just really creeped me out.
about the gender issue - here's what happened to me when i visited egypt two years ago. i logged in to couchsurfing because i wanted to change my couch status to "i'm traveling" (to let potential travelers know that i couldn't host at the moment). without knowing it or explicitly stating where i'm traveling, my profile must've appeared in some "people near you" part of the site - within 24 hours i had received nine contact requests from guys wanting to meet or marry(?!) me. i don't know. it just really creeped me out.