Sorry if this is off topic, but let me explain a bit - as you are pretty close.
Jelsoft owned the vb.org domain when IB bought them, so now IB own it. The site is hosted on the IB server. We actually have four administrators, including Marco, who is the only one employed by IB which kinda makes him the boss. None of the other three (me included) is paid. AFAIK, Marco is not paid for his time on the site.
We are as independant as we can be. Obviously, at the end of the day, IB can order us to do something (or not do something). Thus far this has not happened. We have, on occasions, complied with polite requests. The site runs quite happily on 3.6.12, and thus there is no compelling reason to upgrade just for the sake of it. That said, 3.6 is old, and a move to 3.8 is possible. There are no current plans to move to 4.x - the work involved would be prohibative for volunteers. We have over 130 plugins and over 80 custom templates, plus several custom files and a custom system for style choice. The software version is secondary to the sites main function.
Finally, just to get back on topic. Dont feel sorry for IB or vbulletin, Im 100% sure they were well aware of what the reaction would be, everyone else could have predicted it, so Im sure they could. 
