I’m not advocating to throw away money, but I really don’t think 200 Bucks is going to make a big difference for the Institute if they get a good product for it as it’s a 1-time cost. They’ve put so much work and money into the site already that greatly improving it for 200 bucks is probably more than worth it.
One problem the current software has is that it does not work for iPod/iPhone/iPad, nor probably any other touchscreen-based portable devices, due to rich-text-editor, hover events, and other coding craziness incompatible with a mouseless keyboardless interface. Millions use these devices.
I don’t mind the way this forum looks, but it is hard for me to search for old post when either other post show up with the same keywords in the replies, or replies to other post with the same keywords in the title. I would like to just have the post title’s come up with the matching words.
Yes, the search function is really lacking; another advantage vBulletin has.
/bump