So for the others trying to make this work the following is what was wrong with the original code, this > condition="in_array($forum['parentid'] should really be this > condition="in_array($forum['forumid']
HTML Code:
Wrong:
<if condition="in_array($forum['parentid'], array(XX,XX,XX))"><img src="$stylevars[imgdir_misc]/$forum[forumid].gif" alt="$forum[title]" border="0" vspace="2px" hspace="2px" align="left"/></if>
Right:
<if condition="in_array($forum['forumid'], array(XX,XX,XX))"><img src="$stylevars[imgdir_misc]/$forum[forumid].gif" alt="$forum[title]" border="0" vspace="2px" hspace="2px" align="left"/></if>