@Anthony Parsons - I love the work Pixel Exit does. I also enjoy work by Audentio. They're both great in what they do. They have different styles to them that should be appreciated. The problem with designers is that there's simply not enough GOOD ones. There's a bunch of others people who simply change colors or add an element or two, but they're just painting the same ugly design a different color. I like that Pixel Exit and Audentio, or ThemeHouse (whatever it is nowadays) at least try to do things a little bit different.
The other problem with designs is that the website owner often has no idea what they want. Designers will only make what you tell them to make. Xenforo out of the box looks like crap, but you know what- it's not Xenforo's job to paint the house. They give us the script and it's OUR job to make it look good. Now XF could come up with something that doesn't look like it's from 2003, that's for sure....
@Robru - you think if people want a deep explanation of something, that they're looking for a forum? No they're not. They're going to blogs. Forums are mostly popular with an older crowd who experienced them from the start. The younger crowd will ask people on social media, join Facebook groups (there's groups bigger than most people's forums), and search Google. Looking on a forum, for a younger user, is not even in their vocabulary most of the time. Even worse is that Google will rarely rank forum content above that on a blog. Forums are not very SEO friendly and ones locked behind a password have even less chance to be seen on Google. Look at the comment section on some of the big blogs out there. Some blogs can get more interaction on their comments than some people can get on their entire forum. You CAN have in depth discussions without using
Forums can survive, but they need content on the homepage and a very easy way to login and post. It doesn't have to look like social media, but if it's as easy to use (posting takes 2 seconds on any social site), then people will enjoy it. The index page of a forum, with little content and a big blank spot in the middle, is probably the #1 reason that 1) Google don't care about it, and B) most people (especially younger) do NOT return to the forums.