Quoting Petros (Petros.Listig@fdrive.com.au):
I guess the reason for a legal entity is to simplify or enable:
Gosh, I've been through all this before.
1. Insurance
Easy to say without pricing it. I'm guessing that if you ever did, you'd find that general liabiity insurance for a non-profit association would be (1) so very prohibitively and astoundingly expensive in annual premiums that you would give up on the idea, and (2) narrowly written to cover only the directors and enumerated key officers in the performance of their delineated duties. If you imagined that it would automagically cover all activities of volunteers in the organisation, you would be sadly mistaken.
2. Sponsoring 3. Hiring of venues etc. 4. A public voice 5. A president to blame;-)
None of those is particularly improved by incorporation. (If you believe otherwise, please state the grounds for your belief.)
Okay, maybe 1 to 4 are valid. What else?
Near as I can tell, not a single one of them is. I've seen several LUGs make face this issue and proceed based on horrific misinformation. I'm sorry to say, you are trotting out many of the usual bad arguments.