FWIW
I for one would be happier having more features on version 7 than having a great back end one Version 8.
It is all about building traffic and members.
Having a public welcome message for new members
Having public messages and emails for anniversaries of membership.
Having email posting, ie subscribe to google news using keywords, etc, I know there is something out there for that but it was too complex for me..
etc
etc
etc
etc
Even a small charge for the add ones would be fine. SMF has a zillion of them.