Forum PHP Crippled?
 

Okay, I've read the documentation and I've wandered through the forums but nobody seems to have asked or answered the question ... why has PHP been crippled so severely? Is vB afraid of security holes?

I was running WordPress with vBulletin as my forums, but the CMS option looked quite appealing for integrating the blog and user accounts all into one solution, but since I've upgraded and have been tinkering around with things, I've had nothing but frustration in trying to get PHP running properly.

What I want is a simple way of calling up my existing PHP files without having to jump through these stupid "make a new template, make a new layout, make a widget, modify the template so it doesn't show the content" hoops. It's my site, let me risk breaking it or having security holes.

The closest I've found is the include method but even that requires the $output bull.

Bottom line - what's the easiest solution with the least amount of steps for me to run my existing PHP scripts?