[AWS]

Originally Posted by filburt1

I wasn't necessarily talking about XHTML compliance but 80-character-line-limits, accessibility compliancy including section 508, etc.

Queue a developer to retaliate, but I feel that my opinions are valid.

You have valid points. In fact you're the first person that I have seen here that actually understands the differences.
Jive is made to handle large forums. Large forums are not forums that have 2 mill posts and 40K users. Large forums are forums such as ESPNs, which was mentioned above. Which gets upwards of 1 mil online at a time and 5000 or so posts every minute. Jive could handle this. Open Topic could handle it. The enterprise forum that ESPN uses can and does handle it. Vbulletin could not.
You also have to remember. The users of large forums, forums like I describe above, don't care about the UI. They want to be able to post their comments and read the replies. They could care less about smilies. They just distract from the flow of the discussion.