Allen, a couple of things. I will order them by number is perhaps if you choose to respond you can refer to my actual points.
1) The raw number of queries is not important. It is how optomised they are. Number of queries rises as the number of features rises. That is clearly something that can not be avoided (minimised by not avoided). Do you agree? or is the be all and end all of programming databases effectivly the number of queries? If you think find a forum and just remove the index on the threadid or whatever you use and see what happens.
2) If you accept that the number of queries is not really that important and is nothing more than a signal (for example when threads had to do 1 query for every single post in the threaded version then there is clearly a problem there, and i believe vbulletin 1.1 had this problem but it was fixed by 1.3 i think). if you accept that is is only a signal then to say that vbulletin will do worse via performance requires some evidence. Do you have any? What are you basing it on? Recommendations on server specs? When people post at vbulletin with high numbers online giving higher server specs allowing for growth is expected. If you buy a server the difference between 1GB ram and 2GB ram is really not that much in terms of price. The other thing worth noting is that getting to 400 users online on a server is not a huge problem but from going from 400 to 600 is. You get diminishing marginal returns chucking hardware at things. As I don't think there exists a threads forum with 400 people online at once (and you have not provided any high activity sites with evidence that there are) then any comparisons at the very high end of activity are irrelevant because you don't have anything to compare it with.
3) So we are looking at the low end for comparisons, with say 30 or 40 users online. Well vbulletin appears to be recommended by most hosts, many of whom have banned UBB for example but I have certainly never heard of a host advising someone to move from vbulletin to ubbthreads. Have you?
4) The reason the vbulletin lot are coming over here is not so much this thread but actually one caused by the CEO at infopop and especially his claim that vbulletin is rubbish because it was coded by a teenager (ignoring of course that there are now another 4 developers). Generally when someone can't compare something in objective terms they sling mud. I wonder if John race, religion, birth place, nationality etc would have been relevant. i doubt it.
The link to the obviously closed thread is:
http://community.infopop.net/2/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=729094322&f=4943065413&m=1873003025better be quick before it is deleted.
5. A missed Screams' message. Thank you for that reply. I understand the bugs completly, was just pointing a couple out. (and p.s. being able to read the whole thread when replying is quite nice if that can be added, partly why i missed your post).
That forum you posted, thank you for that and I take back my bit above about no huge forums. But as you say, two servers which is what a vbulletin with 600+ people online would probably need.