PLEASE don't take this the wrong way. I don't want to stick my nose where it doesn't belong and I CERTAINLY don't want to discourage what you're trying to do - I think its a fantastic idea. I wish I saw this developing earlier than now, but better late than never.
I have quite a bit of experience with running forums. Admittedly, I'm not 100% up to date but a quick bit of searching shows me not a lot has changed. I know there are thousands of people that will die-hardedly defend phpBB to the death, but it really is quite a nightmare to manage in many regards. You've already seen how the anti-spam measures are annoying at best and because phpBB is the largest platform it is also the biggest target. Keeping up with spammers is a huge task and you will cause yourselves really a lot of working keeping on top of it. So many other platforms are so much better in that regard.
Considering we were looking for a way to better organize our support and discussion I don't think we really need the main advantage that phpBB *does* have - 3rd party add-ons. Some of them are cool, but really its not worth the price paid (in terms of man-hours dedicated to running the thing).
I have had several forums based on SimpleMachines Forum and that's the one I use the most often... however, I haven't actually updated it in a long time or installed a new one so I'm not familiar with whatever the latest version is and as I went to get a link for you, I noticed their site is down (!!!). That's not a good sign. However, the fact I've NOT updated my installation in YEARS and I *STILL* have ZERO spam issues should mean something. It literally takes no effort to manage beyond moderation, which is easily offloaded to the membership.
Oops... OK, right after I finished typing that last paragraph, I see their site is back up
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
I've tried them all. For free ones, its by far the best I've tried. And it beats most pay ones in terms of being EASY TO MANAGE - which is key when you don't have a lot of resources or time.
So... that's my 2c... take some time to figure out what platform you REALLY want and then organize it as best you can before you get too far into this.
Whatever you do, I'm here to help.
- Steven