[davidw]

For the most part, it was a similar look and feel. There were a lot of things that made it feel new and "fresh" in comparison to the old nuke/phpbb. Fortunately, the style I am using now (as seen at my site: style is "Bluey") was very similar to the one I used before. In your case, that appears to be pretty common looking (not meaning to sound negative) but actually benefitial to retaining your look. If you'll look around, you can see many, many styles on vb.org and I'm sure you may find one that can fit your website - and possibly moreso than what you have now. You may benefit even more from saving images from your current style and incorporating them in another one (such as the music symbols and the background.)

As kurtbarker says as well, sub-forums are not hacks, they are standard in vb. This is one thing I hated not having with nuke.