Cleaning up the vBulletin layout?
 

For what I currently need a lot of the information vBulletin shows on it's default forum/table structure isn't necassary, it's just distracts from the main bits I want the users to look at i.e. Thread name, last replied date and number of replies.

From what I can tell I'll need to be doing a lot of template editing, but is there any hacks/easy ways of really cleaning up or customising exacly what vBulletin shows?

Basically I want to get it really nice and light similar to the default bbPress layout.

"Why not just use bbBress?" you're asking. Well, because vBulletin had some hacks/functionality that I needed above anything else (mainly the paypal 'Buy Thread' hack and the attachments functionality). I could have paid someone to add them to bbPress for me I guess but the $85 licence for vB worked out a lot cheaper and gave me a lot of functionality in the back end bbPress will never provide.

So, any easy ways of really cleaning up vB to look more like bbPress? Or am I just going to have get on with making a LOT of customised templates?

Thanks a lot,
Rich

You're going to be doing alot of template work. There's no easy way to say "display this, but don't display this", otherwise there'd be a billion more things to the options menu than there already is.

I've just done this. My suggestion is that unless you have a ridiculous amount of time and a ridiculous amount of patience and sanity, don't even try. And this is coming from someone who is very used to modifications.