Over five years of developing REDACTED, an open-access cyberse- curity education platform, we observed significant insights into student engagement, community dynamics, and scalable educa- tional infrastructure.Originally an experimental elective course leveraging Capture The Flag (CTF) challenges, the platform has transformed into a vibrant, globally accessible learning ecosystem supporting over 40,000 participants. We found voluntary learners consistently exhibited deeper engagement and persistence com- pared to those in mandatory settings, underscoring the importance of intrinsic motivation. Integration of interactive streaming via Twitch and asynchronous community support through Discord reduced learner isolation, created engaging pseudo-anonymous interactions, and fostered collaborative problem-solving cultures. Simultaneously, we encountered challenges around maintaining ed- ucational integrity, particularly as archival resources inadvertently enabled superficial problem-solving practices among some students. Careful refinement of gamification elements proved essential in balancing motivation with meaningful learning outcomes. This pa- per distills these key insights, emphasizing strategies for designing engaging, scalable, and authentic cybersecurity education environ- ments that effectively leverage open access and community-driven contributions.