I posted a few thoughts in another thread regarding a new server but this one should probably be the official thread for us non-whitelisters as srm86 encouraged, so I'll reiterate and share some more here.
First of all, as I was only a brand new applicant before SG ended I hope you don't mind my participation here. I would very much like to be a part of this community. So much in fact that I haven't even bothered looking elsewhere to join because I feel like this is the best group and right place for me so I'd love to see it continue and am willing to wait for it.
I definitely agree with Drahmee's 3 points for a FigureHead. Its a big job but like Drahmee said, they can't do it alone. Just from what I've read here on the forum, there are several members that would be more than willing to help out and everyone seems to get a long nicely.
That makes a huge difference and the role of the FigureHead much more manageable. I served as FigureHead on my previous server and it was such a great group, I rarely had to do anything but whitelist new members. Granted, we were pure vanilla so I didn't have to worry about maintaining plugins, etc but as far as managing goes the server nearly managed itself. Is pure vanilla an option? It would certainly make things more simple, however I just don't have much experience with plugins to know all the benefits.
Regarding cost, since this is mostly an adult server I'd expect most of us could manage a single dollar or two every month or even every other month. I'd certainly be willing to contribute. A dollar or two a month is more than worth it for me to be part of a great Minecraft community.
I used a few different hosts throughout my former career as a FigureHead. My favorite was BeastNode. They seemed to offer the best performance and technical help. This was about a year ago.