Do your sale magic: Why should I change?
 

Hi there,

I currently own a forum based on PHPbb 3.07 PL1. I didn't mind it that much until recently, when a change on my host (passing from PHP4 to PHP5) caused an annoying problem. There is surely a simple solution to my problem, but the lack of response from communities supporting PHPbb is distressing at best.

I figure I have two options.

Option A) Keep the PHPbb forum, 792362 messages, 35628 topics and roughly 100 active users (1000 registered), and spit out 300$ for a friend of mine to take a look at the forum and solve the current problem.

Option B) Buy vBulletin for the same price. I've been a moderator on the Paradox Entertainment forums, and they didn't seem to struggle so much with their vBulletin forum. And I figure that if I do pay for this product, I will get some support.

I'm very tempted to go for option B). But I need some killer arguments for me, and for my users.

My questions:

- What are some very cool features that aren't available in PHPbb's latest version, but are available in your version? Both from a user and an owner/moderator perspective? Perhaps there's a post about that on the forums here, but I haven't found it yet.

- How old is the current main version (vBulletin 4)? And how long will it stay the current main version?

- Running the test, I'm being told that "magic_quotes_gpc should be off for optimal performance, ask your host to change this in php.ini" Is that a very big problem?

Thanks!