[Logician]

My own site is not commercial but I applied some paid membership integrations so my 2 cents:

1- It helps to reduce site traffic to close the content to non-payers but it makes harder to get new paying members since guests do not know the site well so dont register.. The best practise is to provide content for non-paying members too, but in a limited basis, like disabling attachment viewing (especially if images are important for board members), disable new thread/pm features etc. It also helps to provide all contents to everybody but put some delays/ads for non paying members. So for example everybody can view an attachment but non payers should go through a delay/ad screen first to get it. etc..

2- One of the most important step of fully automated integration is to choose a good CC transaction company. They should not be very strict about site integration and provide tools to integrate their transaction with vb. This of course does not apply, if you dont care much about automatic membership management and if you are ready to move paying members to their new user groups by hand (this is your only option if you accept Cheque payment)

3- As for timelimits: IMO it makes things easier to have only one membership type. They pay you $X, and get the membership for Y days. Regarding your membership is a board membership IMO it's not necessary to have too many membership options..

Hope this helps a bit..