vB4 Please change the stylevar system
 

I've been working on modifying the vb4 default theme to fit the colors we use on our existing forum and I wanted to share my opinion of the new stylevar system.

This has to be the WORST solution for modifying the forum. I don't know how much time I've spent memorizing stylevar placements to effectively change color aspects in vb4. If you insist on sticking with this unintuitive mess at least do two things.

1. Please match the name of the stylevars to the CSS selectors so it makes more sense. As it is now the stylevars have one name and the CSS selectors the stylevar affects has another. Why? At the very least please include the CSS selectors the stylevar changes so we can find our way through this ridiculous maze of settings.

2. Include a preview for each section of the stylevars showing the colors in effect visually, helping us identify where on the site these vars live. If working on the forumbits show the forumbit colors all together so we can have some sort of visual of the colors together. This is 2010 after all and to me the stylevar has really added a big level of complexity that doesn't need to be there. Why does customizing vBulletin 4.x have to be so difficult?

If I were you I'd scrap the entire stylevar system and go in a new direction, directly related to the CSS selectors and in a more visual editor within vBulletin to make customizing a lot easier for webmasters.

I would love to hear the reasoning behind this choice and the justification for creating such a complex procedure. I have a feeling your competitors like IPB are looking at this and figuring out how to avoid complicating the customization like the vB developers have done.