From my experience with web development and forums such as this one, the file structure is enormously complex, and if you try to customize the forum to do something for which it was not originally designed, and with no available module or plugins available, it's next to impossible. I can understand marks position on this completely, he wouldn't have a single strand of hair left on his head by the time he could finish the project and debug hundreds of files and probably ten thousand plus of lines of code.

What I would recommend however is keeping the forum updated from time to time with some cool new modules (if they are available).

If there were, for instance, a module for instant messaging (aside from PM system) where members can instantly communicate with each other without the shout box (which is way overcrowded) and without the PM space filling up in record time, that would be very very cool.

I think mark has done a good job on this place. Remember tho, there are only 24 hours in a day, and he has to make a living with what I know can be an extremely frustrating job (web development). Asking him to reinvent the wheel and reverse engineer and customize the forum would drive any man in his shoes to the brink of insanity and beyond.

Mark, is there any way for us to check out the modules which are available for this forum, and maybe have some feedback from members as to updates which are realistic and possible?