I think diesel is sort of misleading in itself. Dieselpunk is the focus of a war that never ended with certain aesthetics. I think most people who are interested in dieselpunk end up being more interested in retrofuture, art deco, vintage industrial, and pulp. Dieselpunk is just not very appealing by itself as its very limited to certain concept. However, the time period from which dieselpunk is suppose to reside in is fantastic, and breaking out of the genre it what most of us end up doing.

I've directed 3 people with questions about steampunk to the Lounge and the Gazette today, obviously google hasn't ranked us high enough yet!

It could go down and then spike again. The web is big and chaotic and some viral thing could drastically increase the interest in steampunk in the future. If I knew how exactly Google worked, I would be rich in no time, being in internet-marketing.

Compare and contrast:

The Steampunk Trend
The Product Life Cycle

The Analysis:

As a subcultural exercise, the future of Steampunk is essentially forged in iron as it prepares to move through the same cultural life cycle that affected its predecessor cultures of Goth, Punk and Rivet. The pattern begins with a lengthy period of exploration and development falling under the cultural radar until it is "discovered" or "consolidated". This phase sees a sharp rise in both underground and mainstream attention as the culture escalates rapidly towards its critical mass. Steampunk's present standing of attracting new adherents, a flourishing "scene" landscape and acting as the latest "alternative" trend charted by media outlets reflects this phase. A plateau will eventually be reached in which the essential tropes, rhetoric and style of the culture become immovably codified and the system runs on automatically through a period of stagnation. Early adopters who entered at the beginning of the consolidation phase will, with cries of the culture being found out and sold out, give way to the early majority who segue the transition to the formalized and stagnant version of the culture as pioneered by the early adopters. Following this is inevitable decline as subsequent generations find the subculture irrelevant to their needs, interests, tastes and values, finding an appeal only amongst the hangers-on, latest majority and cultural laggards for whom Steampunk will itself be "retro-2000's".

Indeed, some base level of die-hard fans will continue to enjoy the genre even as the gauntlet of "trend-worthiness" is passed on.