Hello Brogan,
I already made some minor suggestions on your support website and must say that I don't need other major features.
But just for the sake of it, I have some major suggestions I thought about.
I am totally against portals and home tabs personally, but as I see here on forum, everybody is in a need of a portal solution. One way or another people want to have it. I think for the future of this add-on it should also focus on this side. Again, personally, I don't care. You can disable all that portal stuff but that would hurt your business I am afraid. So, you have to deal also with those clients.
Anyway, my suggestion is, it is based on my experience, that the portal page should get a some kind of structure. I always skip the portals page and never read it, never.
The reason behind this is because the portal page is a mess in most cases. Just thrown out "news" in no order (other than maybe publishing order). Maybe, if it would have a structure, like forum categories or nodes, I could see myself as a user using the portal page. Like a categorizing on xenforo's sidebar:
So if you could "feature" your threads into some kind of categories for the portal page. And people can then easily search through the categories they wish for. So if someone asks himself: "Oh, what is the newest article about graphics or importers?" and then they would land on your portal page and just check the latest news in that categories. Of course all based on threads. And each thread can belong to multiple categories, as you wish it.
I don't know, if this is a good idea at all, just suggesting.
My other suggestions would be about the main core of this add-on: Featuring and Threads.
You can feature in a block (medium size), you can feature in a slider (large size), but how about the small size?
I think something like a (news)ticker could be a fine thing. Based on threads of course, but very minimalistic (only thread titles).
You can say now, "hey, make the block or the slider smaller, then you have something kind of like that". But no, there is a difference here which of you haven't taken of advantage yet. First of all the block is static, it just refreshes itself with each page refresh. The slider is better because it is a slider, so dynamic. But each have their advantages on their own and they shouldn't be turned to (news)tickers.
So, the (news)ticker and the advantage of it. The advantage of it is that is small, very small, minimalistic. That means, you can place it everywhere, and I mean everywhere. And this is what you haven't done yet (so far from what I know). On a forum there are a lot of display places (hooks) and a newsticker could be used in those places. For example between posts. Think of it as an ad. An ad for advertising your own forum(threads). So you could feature your threads between postings as a newsticker. So a belt with the newest headlines in your forum. On TV when you watch BBC or CNN (or other news channels), on buttom of the screen you see the newsticker, always moving. So something like that. Between every 10th and 11th posting. Or on buttom of the thread page or on top. Or on buttom of the forum list page. A small belt featuring your threads. Always in move, never stopping, a news ticker.
And maybe, my last suggestion, if it can be done and it is in confirm with legal laws, maybe featuring content of other websites?
Featuring of your own twitter page, of your own facebook page, of your own youtube channel.
And on top of that, maybe featuring content from other sources, like the tag lines of the New York Times articles.
I think featuring other sources could be a problem and very unlikely that you do that, but you can grab on the "feature" thing and extend it. Not just "feature threads", but feature Twitter , feature facebook, etc. Of course all associated with your own twitter, facebook accounts. So everything what you own, not what others own.
Regards.