I discovered once I began publishing products that even though I might not need to globalize variables on my site(s), other folks would have issues because it wasn't available on theirs. I don't know why this is.

So as insurance, I now tend to globalize $vbulletin, $vbphrase, $db whenever I use them in any plugin just to make sure this won't be an issue for anyone who installs my products. :)

You dont need to globalize it, and its bad practice to do so.

What you need to do is use the correct variable, which in a lot of core class functions is $this->registry, not $vbulletin.

(e.g. $this->registry->options['xxx'], not $vbulletin->options['xxx']).

-_- facepalm, seeing this now I remember, Ive used that before. Thanks Paul =)