Wakaba was daunting at first, especially since I hadn't touched Perl in some time before looking through it. I remember working through the references to arrays filled with references to hashes that are handed from subroutine to subroutine. If Wakaba were any larger, I would have given up.

Wakaba gets away with this structure because it isn't trying to be an extensible imageboard framework or a feature-perfect clone of another board. In my opinion, this is a feature. It's a good balance between a simple implementation and a simple user experience. If you understand tripcodes, age, and sage, you're set. Want to keep track of a thread? Simply bookmark it. Want to make your top-of-page rules look like posts? Just insert the appropriate HTML. I'm not against message boards with new features, but every time I see a stock Wakaba installation, I'm reminded of why I liked to post on such boards in the first place.