I admit, it is a good module. Still, I have rarely used it. The main reason is that I wanted advanced search filters and I wanted a panel to take over the node layout.

I'd order and read your book, it's more clear for me now, the question was mainly based on curiosity and testing how everything works here. Great book, by the way, thanks for taking the time and write it!

to use advanced forum is together with author pane in order to get a nice comment layout. For people with php knowledge this can be done by the tpl file , but if you don't really know php (like me) it's the best way to get nice looking comments. Like this you can keep all the features Dorien wants from the forum (panels,views) but make comment layouts more attractive. Just an idea...