I need to donate to a project. It's something I've been meaning to do.
I will probably donate to Kdenlive or Inkscape at some point in the future.
What features do you find are missing from Ardour?
Have you tried Harrison Mixbus? It's actually built on the same core as Ardour, and Steve Harris is one of the top developers on both projects. Mixbus costs around $90 US though, but their tracks/buses have built-in analogue-DSP engines to make it sound/feel more like a real console. I'd be willing to bet Ardour has far more users than Mixbus.

And yes the VHS tapes are usually quite frail after a long time. These have been stored well though. I know people who have had VHS that are quite old and put them in a VCR and had them work. I'm pretty sure the data can still be retrieved from them no matter what, but not with a tape-deck reel device.