[mccollin]

I did try them all a month ago. My requirements were similar to yours. I had a custom style that I wanted to use, and I did not want the boxy look.

vBindex won my test. The reason is that it is incredibly easy to twist into what you want it to do. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty, you can create something that has no boxes at all and is totally driven from vB data. Take a look at my site from the link below. Click on one of the pdaPhones on the left, or from the drop down menu to get to Articles or the FAQ pages. Then drill down into an article or FAQ. Everything you see is coming from vBulletin data or a few custom tables I created. All of it is running through the vBindex.php base file or different versions of it that I've created.

Of course, you'll have to do a little php, sql, and vbulletin template mods to get this effect. But, vBindex gives you the foundation. Losing the box effect is mostly a function of how you handle the styles and html in your templates. You can do this with any of them if you want. My main observation about vBindex is that it is layout to make that pretty easy to do.