Yes you are wrong and yes it's wrong that this must be done, today's search engines DO index querystrings therefore this modification is no longer needed. Friendly search engine URL are no longer limited to /forums/this_friendly_url.php but links like /forums/index.php?showtopic=1234
You are missing something obvious here. I'm not saying that SEs can't index variables in querystrings. I'm saying that they won't if one of those variables happens to be a session variable, for the obvious reason that each visitor would have a different variable there. You need to read/think more before posting strong replies!!!
That's a hard question to answer because vBulletin has many addons and many community support sites that offer addons but at the same time a stock 'out-of-the-box' vBulletin installation also works great for many people.
you can't compare vb to phpbb phpbb is free, vb is payed the guys at vb are payed very good =>they do better work by choosing vb you have bout 1000 times better support for vb you can use vb seo for better search engine optimisation and the list continues
Just because something is free doesn't make it an inferior product. In regards to features, the big three (vBulletin, phpBB, IPB) have been playing 'tag' for the last couple of years with each new release. Don't get me wrong, I prefer vBulletin (just look at my sig ), but saying that you can't compare the two products is being short sighted.