I apologize in advance for the very long post, I just wanted to add my thoughts to this topic..
I don't hate proboards, it just doesn't have the features that I want. I left proboards in 2005, and I still have my board, however these were the reasons I left.. I left shortly after seeing how much of a disappointment v4 turned out to be, (a few of the features that they said would come with the release of v4, actually weren't there at the time of its release .. such as the forum directory. Though, I don't know if they've added it yet..) and seeing that the things I didn't like about it wouldn't be changed. That said, while I do not like them, and will probably never go back, I do believe that they are a great start for those who have never run a forum. I took one look at the IF controls, and I went running to PB.. however it was after I had gotten used to running by brother's IF board, and had learned all I could about PB, that I realized just how limited PB really was.
Fear of IF's controls aside, I actually went because they had one thing IF didn't, and that was an avatar gallery.
But even then, you weren't allowed to have avatars larger than 100px..
I worked past that until I realized that the only way I could post video was if I posted the actual html code in the header for the board that I wanted to show it. (this was years ago as i see now that they have a youtube button.)
This was also the same issue for flash games.. back then you couldn't post flash.
With IF, I was able to post videos, and flash games in threads using doHTML.
On my current host, I don't even need doHTML, because I can have custom BBCodes.. so I'm able to have videos from other sites like Veoh, Megavideo, DailyMotion, and GoogleVideo in addition to Youtube. I've even had a Stage 6 code, but when they went offline, I took it off..
You can't change your boards url. Last time I used them, there was no real way to add a custom domain either. I am not sure if that is the case now..
I don't like the board search feature.. it comes up as a popup, rather than as something that is integrated into the forum (like the mini search form is in the topics and boards here.)
You cannot have a custom profile field.
The lack of a skin changer wasn't really an issue because IF didn't have one either.. and when I saw that they were adding one with the v4 upgrade, I was psyched.. until I saw that you still needed HTML in the main and global headers to add a cat and title bg image to each skin. I really didn't get that at all. You still needed javascript to have a different gradient for each skin. They added a skin changer, but no way to add images for the areas that people changed most? There was an area where you can add a background after all.. or at the very least, they could have given you more control over the css.
I've often heard of people whose boards were cracked, and asked for a restoration, and were told that all that could be restored were the categories and boards.. and not the actual topics. I don't know what the case is now, as I have not used PB since 2005.
I also didn't like how you would never have access to your forum's database, even if you offered to pay for it. So if you had a forum that was very successful, and you wanted to move, and take your database so that you could host your forum, you couldn't. You either had to stay on their service, or you could leave and then start over from scratch.
Another issue for me was that you only had about 35 or so spaces for censored words. I've been on forums that have more filters than that banned from their forums. This would have been an issue for me, because I not only use the word filters for bad words, but I also use them for the links of people sites whom have spammed my forum with their link.. despite the fact that it was against the rules.
I also didn't like the fact that you couldn't have a portal without using some humongous code that would conflict with a few of the others.
There is no split/merge feature on PB which means that if someone accidentally says something that is off-topic, and a good discussion continues from that point, your only choices are to either:
A. Leave it as is.
or
B. Delete the off-topic posts and hope that the person re-starts the topic.
There should have been a split/merge feature added.
The fact that there is no way to sort the posts in a forum like there is with IF. I see now, that you can do so when you go into the board settings in your admin control panel. That should be placed in the index view of each board.
I didn't like that you would need codes for things on PB, that would come standard with other hosts. Such as a portal.. spaces between boards, border effects, switching the place for the cat and titlebgs, removing "Hey, you got X messages" etc.. I got tired of having to put in a whole bunch of codes into my headers and footers to do things that came standard with IF.. most of these codes did not work, and the ones that did work, caused conflicts with the rest of the codes.
I didn't like how limited you were when it came to skinning.. I cant speak for other software but I know that with IF, you had full access to the css and the board wrappers, so if you wanted to have a border around the entire forum, or if you wanted to use images on the left and right hand side of the forum, you could. With PB, they use a background image that had borders on the sides, and a fixed with to get that effect. You cannot change the size of the text, I remember when I had members with eye problems telling me that the text was too small. I am sure that there is a code that will allow you to do this, but having full access to the css would be easier.
I didn't like the MANY header and footer areas there were for each board. That only complicated things I think. I could understand if it were for each different skin, but each board on your forum? I thought that it was more trouble than it was worth..
You cannot protect your ACP with a security question, so if somene guesses your password, you are pretty much a sitting duck. (Granted, IF doesn't have this feature either, but at least the ACP is separate from the forum. Useful in the instances where someone had gotten access to an admin account, while another was logged into the acp.. and stopped that person ibefore any harm was done to the board.)
No trash can feature. IF doesn't have one either, however, it is useful not only in terms of trashing topics, but rather restoring them after an admin or mod had deleted it by mistake, or if they had gone crazy and started deleting everything. At least when this happens, you'd be able to restore everything to where it was originally. Once a topic is deleted, it is gone for good. Sure, you can easily set up a forum for that, but some may not remember to "move" the topic as opposed to deleting it.
No Arcade. Again, I am not sure what the case is now, but when I used PB, there was no Arcade, and the only way you could have one was to use a code, which almost always conflicted with others. and with the hassle involved, it would be more trouble than it was worth. IF didn't have one either, but there were a few codes like Thunder Arcade, that did allow people to have one on their forums. I am not sure as to how much of a hassle it was to add it on IF, but my current host has one that was included as a default feature.
There is also the appearance. I didn't like the appearance at all. I don't like the way the profile controls are laid out, as well as the admin controls. with IF there are more options, each option was a category, and you could edit the settings of the area that you wanted, instead of having to scroll through others like you do on PB. You could anything from manage your contacts, to manage your subscriptions and it was all in the same area, but categorized. With PB your profile settings are all in one area, and your pm settings are in another.
I know I've made a lot of comparisons to IF, but these were my reasons why IF was a better choice for me then. The things I mentioned pretty much apply to my current host, only, in the places where I said that IF didn't have that feature, is where my host does.
The two things that I did like about them was that you could move the google ad on top of your entire forum, and use opacity. You needed a code, but when done right, it looked very nice. However, this too wasn't worth it in the long run because the effect was lost on those who didn't use Opera or Firefox and used IE, and other browsers.
