The 6.3 beta and the stable 6.2.3 version aren't too much different. At least not enough to cause these types of problems. To try and isolate this I'd do as he suggests. First, totally disable the IIP, just have the index be the forums. Then just to be safe you might want to disable this news checker you're refering to.
1000+ httpd connections is definitely not normal as far as I'm aware and like I said earlier. There is nothing in threads that does recursive calls that would spawn additional httpd children.
