Yeah, that's exactly the reason why I've denied the inclusion of a rep system, it'll just get abused.
I just spent some time looking at both vB and IVF:
* IVF is pretty expensive, $150 for the basic license that gives you unlimited usage, but only 6 months of updates, with $25,- to buy another 6 months of updates. There's also a commercial license for twice that much, but it only offers more phone support, which I doubt we'll be using.
* Dunno about the features, but it seems to be on-par with vB, probably even less - at least the modding community doesn't seem to be as big. That, and vB seems to be more popular for the largest boards.
* vB offers licenses for $180,- for a perpetual license, with a year of updates and a cost of $60,- for an extra year of updates. Which makes it $5,- more expensive than IVF for a year of updates, now I think about it, and moreso if more updates have to be bought later on.
I've also checked out the development on vB 4.0, which will be the start of a full (architectural) redesign of the software. Although they've stated that it'll be an incremental redesign, meaning that not everything will have been rewritten in the first release of 4.0. Still though, the first betas of 4.0 are due for release in Q2 of this year, so if we'd buy a license now or somewhere soon, we'd be able to hop onto the 4.0 train. 4.0 also has a CMS system, which could be worth looking into if it's any good.
I haven't seen any code of it though, so I can't judge that. IVF seems a tad less user-friendly when it comes to coding and templates, but that's countered again by its better admin CP.
So tbph, I have no clue,
. vB seems the more professional / developed of the two though, but that might just be my personal bias. As I said, the last experience I have with IVF is years ago, with a horribly outdated version,
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