Graduation does five things for you, mechanically speaking.

• Reputation privilege tables are changed. That answer really explains it so I don't need to go further. Given the rep distribution at current, this is actually somewhat negative since you have a pretty tiny fraction of 5% that surpasses 1k rep.
• The site gets a visual design. You get a fancy logo and branding and a lot of things that help make you stand out. This strikes me as a positive.
• More likely to have 3k-user-based migration paths in and out. This is based, though, on actual volume and success of migrations. Incoming, SO is the only one even remotely considerable and the rejection rate is too high, nevermind the volume being too low. The other choices SO has for their outgoing migrations still trump Code Review and I can see several other site candidates that are far more likely to get a slot than Code Review. For outgoing, you guys don't have quite enough to warrant consideration yet. So this is neither positive nor negative, and I don't see that changing in the near term.
• Moderator elections happen. This is the main step to the site being more self-governed, in that instead of the moderators being appointed from on high, the community gets to select the moderators. This is advantageous if the community exists that is devoted to moderation, but if you guys are in dry spots for people who actually are up to the task, then this can be seen as a negative.
• Community Promotion Ads. You might call this underwhelming but I like making these. A graduated site gets a thread that allows them to host ads that are displayed in the right sidebar to visitors. You can see an example from Ask Ubuntu here. It's a fun way to help provide things that you feel visitors to your community will appreciate. I'd call this a positive.

Overall it's mostly a positive - but let's put it this way. Part of the judgment of when we actually push sites to graduation is that all of these should be positive if the site is ready to graduate. If reputation levels changing, or migration paths opening, or moderator elections happening, if these can be seen as negative to the site's progress, then it is unlikely that the site is ready to graduate.

Graduation does five things for you, mechanically speaking.

• Reputation privilege tables are changed. That answer really explains it so I don't need to go further. Given the rep distribution at current, this is actually somewhat negative since you have a pretty tiny fraction of 5% that surpasses 1k rep.
• The site gets a visual design. You get a fancy logo and branding and a lot of things that help make you stand out. This strikes me as a positive.
• More likely to have 3k-user-based migration paths in and out. This is based, though, on actual volume and success of migrations. Incoming, SO is the only one even remotely considerable and the rejection rate is too high, nevermind the volume being too low. The other choices SO has for their outgoing migrations still trump Code Review and I can see several other site candidates that are far more likely to get a slot than Code Review. For outgoing, you guys don't have quite enough to warrant consideration yet. So this is neither positive nor negative, and I don't see that changing in the near term.
• Moderator elections happen. This is the main step to the site being more self-governed, in that instead of the moderators being appointed from on high, the community gets to select the moderators. This is advantageous if the community exists that is devoted to moderation, but if you guys are in dry spots for people who actually are up to the task, then this can be seen as a negative.
• Community Promotion Ads. You might call this underwhelming but I like making these. A graduated site gets a thread that allows them to host ads that are displayed in the right sidebar to visitors. You can see an example from Ask Ubuntu here. It's a fun way to help provide things that you feel visitors to your community will appreciate. I'd call this a positive.

Overall it's mostly a positive - but let's put it this way. Part of the judgment of when we actually push sites to graduation is that all of these should be positive if the site is ready to graduate. If reputation levels changing, or migration paths opening, or moderator elections happening, if these can be seen as negative to the site's progress, then it is unlikely that the site is ready to graduate.