[qq]You had to put a -1 in? Is that really a problem if it works? [/qq]

That's just one example, and it took me days to figure that out. Yes, it is a problem. I shouldn't have to deal with broken HTML. I thought the whole point of VB's great admin CP was that I shouldn't have to deal with CSS and source code at all? VB has all those 47 million little template input boxes where you put your style options, but I had to bypass those myself and fix their HTML because the layout uses tables embedded in tables embedded in more tables.

phpbb's templates are all files. You edit them as files and upload them. VB makes you use thier web-editing form, right? With VB I feel like I'm building a site using Tripod site-builder.

[qq]If you want to have a hell of a lot of control over how your board looks and works without having to hack the place to death, use vBulletin.[/qq]

I said above, I never had to hack phpbb to death. I touched the PHP once, and that was to edit a regex dealing with how the code tag parses certain control characters. I had to edit that EXACT thing on this VB3 as well.

Why do you think it's necessary to hack phpbb to death?

[qq]All the features it has, the incredible support and what is in my opinion most important - the Admin CP.[/qq]

All the features meaning what specifically? The calendar? I don't think a calendar is worth $160.

As I said, the CP in phpbb is comparable to VB. There is very little difference. It's been a while, but I'm having trouble thinking of anything useful the phpbb CP couldn't do that VB could. http://www.phpbb.com/demo.php is a demo of the phpbb cp, you can take a look and tell me what it's missing if you'd like.

The support for VB might be better, if you care for such things. But phpbb has a nice active community as well.

[qq]If you honestly feel that you could get phpBB to operate as it does now using a phpBB and have the speed of the forums increase in any slightly significant way, you should probably talk to Cid about getting it done, because every little helps.[/qq]

I tend to be ignored when it comes to any sort of decision like this, and it's not my decision in any case. Also, I'm not willing to do that much work unless it was necessary, which it isn't. VB functions. VB has already been paid for; might as well get use out of it anyways. I am sure that EoFF could run on a phpbb; like I said, I go to larger MBs than this one that use phpbb just fine. Depends what you want though. It'd be missing a lot of the extraneous crap that VB3 gives you. No pointless javascript-animated dropdown search boxes for example.

[qq]vB itself has little to do with the speed issues we've been experiencing, unless you've been using Quick Reply, which I have never endorsed.[/qq]

Strangely enough, I seem to recall the need to dump our file attachments out of the database and into files for this very reason.