Moving forums, need input
 

Currently, our forum installation is in the www.url.com/forums directory. The owner of the site would like the forums to reside as the main page (www.url.com).

Question 1: Is it as simple as just moving all the /forums files to the main index - if not, what else do I need to think about

Question 2: Forums would be down - any time estimates?

Question 3: In the grand scheme of SEO, and just regular web standards, is this advisable - why or why not?

Thanks for the input!