Yeah I know, why they chose that old version of SMF back in 2009? I mean, we're talking about 2009, not 1999.
Your guess is as good as mine.
However there's been
some development on the new software, called Epochtalk going on for quite a while now. Even way before I joined this forum a few years back.
There are some that installed and tested privately, but that's that. Nobody knows the ETA on the official release.
If you're interested, the subforum is @
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=167.0