I had been trying to raise my bid to 1500+ for some days now, but as you've seen, the forum was royally busted since Thursday.
I did email the regulars earlier today (Saturday) with an update.
Peter Thoman seems to have fixed it, while Andrew was pruning out the spammers and their posts in case we needed to move it. Maybe we still will? Things certainly FEEL quicker.
Maybe the competition end date needs to change? Also, not sure yet if PMs are working again. They'll need to, for submissions. I'll test that now with my latest tweak.
Oh, and 1500+
EDIT: PMs seem to be working again too. At least, my tweak attached to the PM I sent to Rob went off as usual.