I'm always up for suggestions to improve the functionality and viewing pleasure of the board.

Some of the requested features are hard to install though. Unfortunately my php skills are limited. However, I did manage to incorporate some of the features we had on the old BSource.
You have to keep in mind that there's only a handful of good forum software. And the really good ones are expensive. I personally think SimpleMachines (which we use here) is pretty amazing cause it has a great support forum and a large modification community. And most of all it's free. And the server we're hosted on is free as well.
Now, if we're talking about layout (colors, fonts, etc.) That can be changed easily.
You can look through all the other themes here:
http://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/Hit me up if there's one you like.