I've posted LOTS of info on SDCC 2011 over on the North American board
http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,30852.0.htmlI've not found that San Diego or Southern California suffers from "splinter groups". We are a pretty nice community that strives to support each other and our events. If you want to find more people in SD, you can always check out
http://www.sandiegosteampunk.org for links, Machina Fatalis
http://machinafatalis.blogspot.com/ for info on SDCC events (upcoming), or come out to Chrononaut to meet & greet our local scene
http://www.chrononautclub.com/ Hope we get to meetup soon. See you at Comic Con!