A community thriving outside itself

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Torley has a nice and thoughtful post on the strength of Second Life community outside SL. This gets me thinking a bit about the identification of oneself with one's avatar. I wonder as SL continues to grow in popularity -- if the notion of millions and millions of active SL users becomes a reality -- will the immersionist tendencies of the average SL user continue to prevail, or will augmentationism rule with new residents? In other words will the unwashed Internet masses flock to SL because of these vibrant micronation communities, or will SL itself just become another destination like Facebook, MySpace, etc.? My gut says there will be a blending of the two -- that having a digital self will become more common, the avatar will still be allowed to be a separate self in some ways, but the boundaries which give the impression that SL is another country will shrink a bit.