The problem is largely money, I think. As maligned as "for-fee" journalism is these days, the ability of biglaw publishers to pay for content largely explains the success of the publications in a way that even a network of solo and small firm blog would be hard to replicate. In addition to ad revenue Incisive/ALM publications benefit from big firm subscriptions. Much as people like to criticize Incisive/ALM as a biglaw toady (and it's true, there are many "puff" pieces on large firms), the reporting and writing is first rate, and they are always first to press on Supreme Court news and other breaking legal matters. You have to pay for that kind of journalism. When I wrote at Legal Blogwatch, I often criticized large firm policy from a small firm perspective and my posts were well read- probably double the traffic I get at MyShingle. But I couldn't have written as much and as regularly without being paid for it.
Same is true at ATL – though much of the news is crowd sourced, David Lat and now Elie Mystal were always paid to write, and that enables them to follow leads which in turn generates more.
Unfortunately, many of the big money sponsors that pay for space at Incisive/ALM have no interest in solo markets. Sometimes that oversight is misplaced as there are many LEXIS or Westlaw products that benefit solo and small firms. But most solos have written these companies off, either because they believe that they are too costly or that they have no interest in solo markets. Likewise, I doubt that most e-discovery vendors would have interest in ads on solo and small firm sites, again because readers are not in their markets.
I do agree from my experience as a blogger for MyShingle on one hand and Blogwatch on another that there is a chasm across the bar. Most of my Blogwatch readers had no idea of what MyShingle was while many of my MyShingle readers had no interest in my Blogwatch posts.
As pessimistic as I sound, I do agree with you that there are solutions and some of those you've suggested may be the right ones. But it's a big enough problem that it does demand a solution, because the legal profession's priorities should not be defined by large firms.