Welcome mimezine, this comes up occasionally, you should try the search next time to find other discussions about this... What sites have you run ubb on? You are a new member here, just wonder where you've been hiding...;)
Basically it's like this.. what's "cool" to you, me, a hundred other people is junk to another 10,000,000 people. With either software you can customize to your heart's content, but we still forget that ~90% of the people who buy forum scripts never customize their scripts other than color changes, maybe some graphics. The 100-200 "features" that are in, can be added to forum software, really mean very little to the vast majority of forum members... what counts more than anything is stability, user experience, and content content, content... the majority of users (and their webmasters) don't care what "brand name" is on the label, they just wanna post, interact with other people with like-minded interests, and come back the next day (if they think your site is interesting enough) and post some more...:)
Bells and whistles don't mean diddly to most forum members. If that's all you have to offer, then those users who wanna "check out the latest thing" will flock to the next site with more bells and whistles... content is what keeps a user... I have seen this hold true for everyone of the hundreds/thousands of sites I have visited with forums... for those that want bells and whistles, we do a right good job of supporting that choice, and with auto-installers, adding something is just a few mouse clicks away....
Having said all that, the choice between the 2 is a matter of preference... with UBB you get software with history and a future... you have a actual company that's gonna be around when you wanna upgrade in the next year or 2... with software that's built by people working out of their bedrooms, you can get decent products, but they may or may not be around in that same time...
Feature-wise, I don't really know, I have never had a copy of vB, so I can't compare... the 2 products really aim at 2 different markets, and have been designed that way since day one...
I do know you won't find better support for your product anywhere else...:)
