I agree with most of the points, and I suspect to make most of it happen it would take a forum script upgrade plus someone to actually set everything up. I wonder if the admins are active and reading this.
About the search (which is the weakest point), just use the google site specific search, like this:
Code:
string you are looking for site:xoutpost.com
This will return the results from xoutpost.com only and works way better then built in search function.