[Roderik]

concerning the mySQL v3 - v4 questions that float throught this thread:

I'm running a forum on a virtual hosting with some company that isn't going to upgrade anytime soon. The host runs with 3.23.58 Since i really really really wanted this hack i went snooping throught the source and on the mySQL site.

The only fulltext search thing in the script is the "MATCH AGAINST IN BOOLEAN MODE". The mySQL manual stats

As of Version 3.23.23, MySQL has support for full-text indexing and searching. Full-text indexes in MySQL are an index of type FULLTEXT. FULLTEXT indexes are used with MyISAM tables only and can be created from CHAR, VARCHAR, or TEXT columns at CREATE TABLE time or added later with ALTER TABLE or CREATE INDEX. For large datasets, it will be much faster to load your data into a table that has no FULLTEXT index, then create the index with ALTER TABLE (or CREATE INDEX). Loading data into a table that already has a FULLTEXT index could be significantly slower.

Some pages back in this thread there is someone with 3.23.57 that uses it without problems so it works just fine on myISAM tables on a mySQL server > 3.23.23.