[thelist] bulletin board software

hi people,

i know there was a discussion a couple of weeks ago regarding bulletin
board software, but i lost all that email when i was dumped from my last
job. while im heading off to scour the archives, i thought i'd throw this
out to you and see if anyone has fresh info, or something pertaining
directly to my situation.

so anyway, im looking for something customisable, quick and easy for users,
etc. it's pretty important that i can get this thing looking more or less
like the rest of the site i'll use it on... it would be easier for me if
this software was happy on NT, but i can probably throw it on a subdomain
on a linux box easily enough.

i've been checking out: Ultimate Bulletin Board
[http://www.ultimatebb.com/] after i noticed that ArsTechnica and
flasher.net seemed to be using it successfully.

the freeware version is lacking the cool features, and im being cheap and
looking for something free (this is a pet project site - minimal cash
outlay, etc), so currently, the full version is not really an option.

nonetheless, the featurelist is pretty nice:
http://www.ultimatebb.com/home/features.shtml

has anyone seen/used something else with good results? URLs?

in the meantime, im going to install the freeware version of UBB and see if
there's any way in which i can customise it at all...

any help is very much appreciated,

isaac