At one point they were trying to make 2 types of forum and have some process synch the database. It seemed like a fool's errand, started by someone who hadn't had that much software dev experience. I think they got the experience and gave up on it.
Better community software is great, but all that time would be better off improving the core product. I've argued against changing the forum software, or at least asked for a proper justification and not just because some young guy thinks everything new is better by default.
Kencode, I believe it was you that gave some reasons to switch the forum software. If you want progress on that front, I'd suggest you just narrow your suggestions to changing out the forum software. Once that is done, then do something else. Has Bitsapphire released any projects yet ? They make swank mockups but that isn't the same as deliverables. You can be good at one and not the other. Who would do all this work and who would pay for it?