What I see usually happens is the hackers drive the innovation. Especially at UBB. They look at Vbulletin and other boards, see cool features and then create hacks for them. The hacks become popular and eventually become part of the product.
Hell, I do the same thing. I go to UBBDev and look to see if there are any cool ideas for hacks or cool hack requests. I also look at other boards. Trouble is, Vbulletin usually already has those features so I don't wind up finding anything new.