[Princeton]

1)__ What I mean by "usable" is that the URL is shorter ... therefore, easier to remember.
2)__ You are assuming that everyone wants a "blog", "gallery", and/or "portal".
3)__ All 3rd-party applications that you mentioned can work while vBulletin is in root.

Although I agree that for instance a good example of integration is Wordpress with vBulletin, Wordpress only requires a singular ./index.php page inside the forum root whilst the remaining configuration files can serve elsewhere in a ./blog/ folder for example. But unfortunately not all products are so forthcoming with their integration.

thank you .. I didn't know that about WordPress
However, you just made my point -- if an application is well thought out you should never ever have to choose between "root" or "folder". The bad thing about WordPress is that it will take you time to learn, install, update, etc, etc. To me, all of this is "time" .. and time is money.

4)__ Like I said on my first post

To me, there is no "better option" but, I will try to lead you into the direction that I believe is the "best option". Hopefully, it will help you in determing where to upload your vBulletin files.