Having been a part of the beta-tester team prior to ubb.classic and ubb.threads even reaching version 6, I can understand your frustration
That said, I've also been a part of several free forum scripts (php/mysql and .net) and their development... nothing moves as
glacially as a free forum script's development. I think your dates are a bit off, under the best of circumstances. Not counting that I don't trust any of my sites to the response time of a developer and their willingness to put in even more free time to fix a security bug/issue. I can't think of any free script that's close to threads in features, security and rock-solidness. Even going back to the 6.x series for .classic and .threads - no free script comes close.
Anyways, I know Rick knows how fast/slow development has been, not sure that anything can be done about it at this point. I've learned to wait, go do some other paying (real life) work and come back when there's something to play with
