personally if you guys are looking at doing anysort of stuff to the forum i recon you just do the little things, that a simple but make it look cool. these are just ideas, eg the stock forum icons on the new posts and old post are just little gif files, http://aussiepinball.com/Themes/dark-red/images/on.gif . i recon it would make a huge difference to have like a pinball or something like that there instead of the pyramid thingo.
you guys use cpanel? if so you just go into your file manager follow the image location delete that picture and replace it with the same file name and upload the new custom gif in its place. the image is on.gif and off.giv if you just do little things like that i recon you will make a bigger difference to the site than huge upgrades. keep the site nice and simple.