Well I wouldn't call them hacks

But here's what I did:
I divided the reviews page into 2 pages a write review and a read reviews.
I only edited the review.php3 and split it in half, and saved one as review2.php3.
Then I added this line to the top of the review2.php3
Code:
require("./global.php");
if ($bbuserinfo[userid]==0) {
show_nopermission();
}
So now it authenticates with vbulletin, but the problem is that if a user is not logged in, he will log in to the member.php page from vbb. I want to change this so it logs in to my review2.php3 instead.
the rest were more of template changes, and the new thread part was simple a link with a query I'm sending with the link's title as the subject and it's URL inside the message body like this:
Since you are a helluva coder, I' hoping you can help me out hacking indexu and vbb together.
PS. I also with the help of a friend manage to create a favorites page that saves that user's favorite links, using the user table from vb and the user sessions. It involved the creation of a new table on my forums database, with 3 fields. If you want more details PM me with your AIM, YAHOO or ICQ#