To help explain the sorts of things one could do, I took a few minutes to search for questions regarding permissions/allowing/disallowing/showing/hiding Here are a few selected links to hacks, hack requests, or template customizations that could be done using only the AdminCP interface of the proposed system:
How to disallow all but ADMIN from seeing Tachy'ed posts?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=64913
Limit Members to X posts in X hours
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=68084
Is it possible to have the user signatue to show up ONCE per page?
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=90108
Disallow guests to view threads, must register first
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=59859
Member Search turned on by usergroup
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=67178
Allow certain users to post HTML when forum has HTML off?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....59&postcount=1
Allow Group to Read Titles / Not Content
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=60178
How do I hide certain forums on the forumhome page only?
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=646342
Disallow Mass Prune/Move for Super Mods
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=66312