I believe people become fixated on the idea of what an imageboard must be or what it must look like.

I'd rather not start a single project to make the BESTEST software ever, but a sort of "competition." What kind you say? Well one to make a leanest imageboard software. Start from scratch to make the bare minimum.

The trick here is to achieve the bare minimum in a number different and creative ways.

What is the bare minimum, I guess we can even leave that up for discussion.

Once you get over your fixation on the original Futaba, you will be able to advance and say, "hey my image board doesn't need to look like this or like that."

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the fundamentals of imageboard software needs variety too.