Doesn't phpBB have a conversion utility for vBulletin? It's free, and has plenty of hacks to provide anything you might need.

And in defense of the RSS idea...

It would require virtually no extra bandwidth to run this. A single script (external.php) is used to dynamically generate a small RSS file only when it's requested by a client website. Or better yet, it can be used to generate an even smaller JavaScript that accomplishes the same thing.

This could actually save bandwidth for J2O. When I visit JCF, I only check 2-3 forums, and even then, only if they have new posts in them. I usually check at least once daily, and usually only see anything I'm interested in maybe 3 times a week.

If there were an overview of the latest posts on J2O (which I check anyway), I'd be able to save the trip (and bandwidth) several times a week. It would also save at least 2 page loads even when there are posts I'm interested in. I'd be able to jump straight to the first topic of interest, rather than start at the forum listing.

-Nag