[Marco van Herwaarden]

First of all, most questions you ask are about standard vBulletin functionality. These are best answered by the official support team at www.vbulletin.com/forum.

(To clarify, vbulletin.com is the official support site, vbulletin.org is a site run by volunteers and aimed at providing modifications that go beyond standard functionality)

Also you can have a look at:
- The admin demo: vBulletin Demo
- The documentation: Documentation
- Server requirements: system requirements (see info block on the left-hand side.
You can also contact sales directly by creating a Sales Support ticket.

1. vBulletin comes with the choice of using Linear (oldest/newest first), Threaded or Hybrid view. This can be globally set in the Admin panel, or by the user.

2. It is very easy to change the looks of a Board. vBulletin comes with a template system, that let's you easily change the looks with mostly simple HTML. It also uses CSS, which can be stored in either the database, or in the filesystem.

3. The current version comes with a (limited) system to export to RSS(2) feeds. For more control you could use one of the Portal systems available, or relative simple use own customized code.

4. vBulletin has the option to show tumbnails for most graphical attachments (alsodepending on the graphical software installed on the server). It has the option to show only thumbnails in a post (clickable for full version), show full size in post if only a single image attached, or to show all images full size.

5. The archive in vBulletin is a SE friendly presentation layer. Optional there are some other ways to improve your SEO. This will all depend on your needs.

6. vBulletin also offers professional installation service, see pricing at www.vbulletin.com, although the basic installation is fairly simple and straight forward. You will find that there are many members offer additional paid services if needed.

About server, vBulletin will run on most servers that have PHP & MySQL. There is a test script available from the Sales FAQ linked above to do a test for your server.

Licensed members will also have access to post in the Server Configuration forum, where you can get assistence to optimize your server configuration.