[futureal]

OK, for some reason I was thinking that your included file would be performing some sort of function rather than just outputting data.

I thought about it some more, and I'm not sure how you would get the output "on demand" as you suggest, without adding it to the vBulletin code -- assuming that the PHP file you want to include echoes something back.

Why not just edit the files so that they "store" their output in a variable, then put the file in the global.php as I suggested (or the phpinclude template as Logician suggested) and then just use that variable where you need the output?

I can't think of any other way to do it. I think that to achieve what you're trying to do, you're going to need to work with the code one way or another.