I had a couple of paths I could have gone down with regards to what forum engine to use, and those were dependent on larger site engines I specialize in. This one is wordpress based while the option I didn’t use is Joomla based. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The joomla one is more robust in the forum features for sure, but WP is easier for templating and tweaking and this engine seemed sort of unique and less phpBB-like.
Down the road it is possible to change to something else if we outgrow this current one. So far this has been running very well, fast, and no crashes or anything (knocking on wood now).