I think this belongs in the Community Lounge
I originally had phpBB2 and used a free host (freeforums.org). I got very annoyed at the lack of features, constant downtime ect...although I couldn't dispute the price. I then switched to paid hosting, hoping it would help me further my site. The first thing I did was upgrade to phpBB3, hoping it would be a lot better. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Although phpBB is good, and best of all it's free -- it just didn't suit me and I couldn't see my site taking off with it. Finally, I found vBulletin and vBSEO -- never looked back since. I would pay 2x the price for both products.
Regards Jason