A few things that've come up lately:
1. Direct contact with developers.
2. No "funky" licensing.
3. a promised "faster" release cycle (which means more features/faster)
4. quick and percise support via the supportdesk, or this forum.
5. a large development community
6. me, because everyoe just loves me lol
Making a link in the navigation bar would be as simple as editing the template file (header.tmpl I believe).
The shoutbox currently purges data as it goes over the limit, so keeping a log of items isnt' a possibility.
A private topic is a private message, there are several ways, you can click on the users name on a normal post and select send pm rom the dropdown, or you can click send pm from their profile. You can add numerous people to the list by entering their name in the private topic box and clicking add. You can invite as many people (up to the limit set by the admin in the control panel) as you'd like to a private topic. I don't believe there is a current feature to kick people from a PT, though it would make a great feature request.
I think the 4th/5th topic thing may be a bug, are you sure that the last post on page4 was already read?
The quickreply box is always open, it';llautomatically attach itself to the last post unless you select quick reply (or reply) to anindividual post.
You can hack in just about anything you want, you get access to the core code with the UBB, no fancy encoding like with other products.
i think your permissions will take a while to be added in as a feature, but I believe rick is planning to increase the permission system at a later date
