Also to mention - you shouldnt allow to access forum directly via server IP address. Make separate vhost for it so it serves 503/404 which will be consuming less resources.
What is the proof for this?
Many benchmarks shows that Nginx with php-fpm is faster than Apache with mod_php and if it goes on higher load then it loses even more.
Another thing is that PHP likes faster clock speed for cpu, buying more cores (if its cloud/vps) might not gain you significant performance if there is no load on the server.
You can run this php code to see at first glance whats the php and hardware performance, of course you can run full...
Your point is valid, but as you see, some individuals are all the time pushing this "the big brother is watching us" agenda all the time.
Pushing their opinion at such frequency, aggressively, they do look like a foil heads here.