bgk

I love many of the new features but I get the feeling that IPB has become stuck in "Feature Creep" mode.

http://en.wikipedia....i/Feature_creep

I am worried that some of the more basic elements of the forum design are getting overlooked, in addition to releases taking longer.  There are so many "small" updates that seem to span everywhere with no cohesiveness other than to make the site as "social" as possible (good in a way).  It just seems like the IPB Forums software is now something different with the forums as an "add on".

One of my biggest gripes is the "clean cut" skin that was "made official" is still in beta a YEAR later.  I now see other skins being talked about being final.  My conclusion is that IPB has no desire to support it.  They would be happy to see it die and to be forgotten.  I have been waiting a year nearly to upgrade to IPB 3.x (awaiting cleancut to go final). Cleancut has had good feedback from my members when they take a look at the design.  With the end of life for 2.3.4 coming in about 4 months I will be forced to upgrade and this really irks me given the cleancut situation and overall lack of skin support for something that keeps the previous look and feel for people (changing the look so drastically is akin to re-branding the look of a site so many like me are very hesitant).

My thoughts: When you try to make everyone happy and add in a lot of things, you end up not doing any of them very well.  IPB may want to consider (IMO) staying focused on their "core" first and then adding these other elements second.  If I were them I would have a guy full time making and supporting the official skins.  They are the "forward facing" element of IPB that the end-users see.  If they suck, then the forums "suck" regardless of what cool coding is behind the scenes.