[Tigga]

FastAttack - Could you explain your problems in a little more depth? What exactly do you mean by "can't sustain the users"? How exactly does it act differently when outside of the forums directory?
I did notice that the page seems to fluctuate in loading times though... Sometimes it loaded in less than 1/2 second, others it took up to 3. If you could add this line of code to your include/config.php file:

if ($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] == '24.99.20.118') { $debug = 1; }

That will turn on debug mode only for my IP address. If you could add that I will be glad to take a look at the queries and such to see if I can find out why it's behaving like that.
As far as new blocks, I may make it a little easier to add / manage new ones, but I don't think I'll go too far with that on this script. It should be fairly easy to copy one of the custom templates and past it in your index template where you would like it to appear as long as you know basic HTML. I will eventually have a CMS / Portal available for purchase which will be much more powerful and have features like this as well.
What exactly do you mean by "pull out the header/ and blocks using a regular php page"? If you're trying to display your header & side blocks with other content in the center, take a look in the readme file - it's explained there how to do that. If that's not what you mean please explain it in a little more detail.

infiniterb - Try saving your options in the Admin CP. There's a new option to set the time/date format for the news there. That, and the other new options won't take affect until after they've been saved.