I don't mean to shit on QA Testers btw 
Just like that's the worst position to probably verafled someone as, let alone talk like they're part of a development team/industry culture. Especially considering how much that's outsourced these days. I could literally become one probably tomorrow if I wanted to. And my gaming contacts outside The Bire are outdated garbage. 
In house QA is one of the most valuable tools a game dev studio can have. Especially if the team is treated as a proper resource an involved in the dev process fully and not just at the end.
I say this as a programmer with 10 years of experience who has dealt with a number of scenarios. If I can have my choice I will never work somewhere that doesn't have a team of dedicated onsite QA again.
Hint: Many devs roam this forum and they do take notice, there’s no other forum with similar importance which isn’t reddit.

Is there a quantifiable way to actually see how much influence Era has? I can buy a lot of devs lurking, but actually taking legit feedback from them?
I'd say the journalist side of things are more in tune with Era, but even then, you got shit like trying to cancel Keighley for his friends when basically everyone on the advertising side of the industry is connected to him in some shape or form. And it's not like the journalist and dev sides have a total symbiotic relationship going on.
Anecdotally, getting in good with Geoff Keighley seems to be valued way more than any random forum.
Also things like Twitter/Facebook/Reddit/Discord are all generally of more interest to developers than NeoGAF or ResetERA ever will be.