adding in my vote for bbcode. it'd also be nice to be able to bookmark threads to come back to & be able to friend people.

this is a pretty niche feature so i wouldn't be surprised if it's too much work or not worth it, but another forum i'm on (melonland.net) shows similar posts/topics as you're writing the post. i think this could be helpful in reducing bloat since i'm already seeing a lot of duplicate topics.