@Hyperz
Ignorance is bliss. History has proven vB to be one of the most insecure but also the most wide spread BB software. That's a dangerous combination. Anyone who paid a bit of attention during history lessons in school will know that by knowing the past you can make more accurate assumptions and decisions in the future. Point being, new vulnerabilities being found is a likelihood. Anyone who has worked with vB's code base and has some basic understanding of programming and security will tell you that vB is insecure by nature because of the way the underlying code and API was written. When it comes to its plugin system it doesn't enforce secure code trough its API. The code base is old, poorly optimized and not well thought out security-wise. The only fix is a total rewrite like Invision did with IPB 3.
If you actually know anything, you'd know that from all vBulletin security vulnerabilities, only 19 of them weren't mod related. And of all those 19 security vulnerabilities, only 2 of them were for the vB 3.8.x. And guess what, neither one of them is a major security vulnerability.
Every released script had security vulnerabilities, so you can't say that you wouldn't use vBulletin because of that.
You don't have to worry that some Genius will discover some major vulnerability, and that he'll release it for free, so all noobs could fuck up the sites. That won't be happening.
That's because up until recently there was nothing around that was competing vB in terms of features and usability. Times change though. Nowadays vB is miles behind IPB 3, let alone IPB 3.1 (and we won't even mention the soon to be released 3.2). It is behind in virtually all aspects - performance, security, code-base, maintainability, useability, price and the list goes on. Lots of these big communities, especially those who are well maintained, are switching to better alternatives. Lots of new sites are now avoiding Jellysoft software. Anyone claiming otherwise is either as ignorant as they come, has a biased opinion or simply likes to think they know a few things about the technical side while in reality they are as green as they come.
All forum scripts have more features than they actually need, it all depends on what the site admin likes and what not. Some people are vBulletin Professionals, and some people are IPB Professionals, and it's logical that they will always go for IPB as they learned to do anything they want with it.
New sites can avoid vBulletin all they want, it still doesn't change the fact that vBulletin is a great forum software.
It consumes a lot more resources than IPB 3. This not a biased opinion but a fact. And one that can easily be proven by setting up a test environment and simulating unique traffic. Everyone is able to do the test. While the performance difference will be nearly non-existend on small sites, under large stress IPB will run circles around vB. This goes back to the outdated code base, which by the way is used in vB 4 too, but with a bit of extra bloat to further slow it down. It's the Crysis of BB software, only difference is that Crysis looks good. vB does not. Perhaps take off your vBulletin T-shirt and give it a go, hmm? It's easy to make a claim and present it as being a fact because it makes your favorite software/brand/e-penis look good/big.
It's obvious that both of them won't have the same performance on a board with 20 active users at the same time, and with 500 users at the same time. Every premade script needs to be optimized in order to work on a high traffic site.
Same goes for most other BB's, including IPB. The difference being that IPB's ACP is actually usable and straight forward.
Not true. For a Webmaster who just started, vBulletin's style system will be way easier than the IPB's one.
Familiar with what exactly? What does IPB have that is so radically different from vB from a users perspective? Nothing. From a webmasters perspective it doesn't matter because IPB's ACP is functional, well structured and very straight forward. This is in sharp contrast to vB ACP, which DOES take getting used to for new users.
IPB is kinda like social network sites, with those sexy profile features, different reputation system, and some other stuff. User who was mostly on vBulletin forums would need time to get used to the IPB's features and everything. Sometimes, the small difference can mean a lot. For example, on vBulletin and phpBB, reply buttons are left, while on the IPB and MyBB, they're right. That doesn't sound like a big issue, but some people wouldn't like it.
What did vB 3 achieve? Or rather, what did it achieve that IPB 3 hasn't so far? And how, according to your oh so professional opinion, is it "the best" when everything you just claimed was based on a biased opinion that doesn't hold water?
What it didn't achieve?
There are more big forums running vBulletin than IPB, and all of them have a normal speed, even though some of them have over 2,000 users online at the same time.
You won't achieve anything by saying that vBulletin needs a complete rewrite, because it doesn't.
I personally think that all premade scripts aren't meant to be liked by developers, as it's obvious they wouldn't like the backend, if it's not coded the way they like it.
Important thing for me, is that the shit I want works, nothing else. You can live in your world of perfection.