He does mention he may sell it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBGIKes5HkE&feature=playe...

Totally! At the very least, they should put the site up for auction on Flippa or something.

I'm not sure that's a good idea. Cork'd is known as being a part of Gary's awesome empire. If it were to be sold, many folks would miss that memo, and still assume it was associated with him. If the new buyers made any missteps, that could reflect badly on Gary, even though he's no longer associated to them.

I'm more surprised about the current strategy to let the site sit there and rot. I'd think shutting it down, while still allowing folks to log in and export their data for a year or so, would be a better option.

Same could be said re previous ownership who are now associated with an abandoned project by those who missed this memo?

I'm sure demand media would buy it to exploit the pagerank

Presuming he has shareholders other than himself, he would be obligated to salvage that value over some theoretical effect on his legacy based on customers not understanding a sale. I certainly wouldn't work with or invest someone that shut a site down that had value for those reasons and without coming to some agreement with shareholders (and perhaps he has).