[peterpigman]

I am guessing that they are in financial trouble, to basically blackmail people into buying something that is not complete and has no release date (not even a guess) suggests a rush to bring in capital. I would be careful paying the upgrade tbh as what will you get if they go bust in the next few months? There are several other platforms which you can convert your VB forum. I think it will show very soon whether this is a dash for capital or just plain greed as once they realize a very large portion of people can't afford such a massive hike in fees they will need to change something or pretty soon there will be a domain holding page where vb.com was.
People saying it is not much of an increase should look at the maths. I have an owned license paid something like $180 for the software and $45 a year or whatever to keep updates means on the old structure for 4 years you would have paid $315 or $6.00 a month (decreasing the longer you own it). On the new structure That would be $285 and most likely $235 a year updates which is $990 or $20.65 a month in other words they have more than TREBLED the monthly fees. Nice work if you can find it.