Other than having sub-forums, what makes Vbulletin so much better than free forums such as PHPbb and Simple Machines Forum? I was thinking about buying a license but I'm not so sure whether it will be worth it.

I personally do not like those paid forums, some free forums (such as MyBB) are almost exactly the same coding wise and free.

I think the reason lots of people use them is:
1. No Link Back (if you pay).
2. Because it costs money, it looks professional.
3. Because you paid, you can bug there support.
4. Less hackers/cracker would in theory (but not in practice) have the code, so it's harder to hack.

How the makers can claim one hacker wouldn't just pay and then rip people off/send others the code...

I think it's more about how much time you intend to put into your forum project. People that have less time tend to buy more expensive products. i.e. in theory you could code you own from scratch, but not many people do.

Or you could just use a free one for none of the cost and there would also be good modification support ;0

Hi there

For the mods you can get via vbulletin.org, the add ons for vbulletin make it head and shoulders above any other forum, for adding things such as an arcade, poker room and other smaller hacks, which make it very flexible, theres even a blog add on now !

Woc