Recently I installed a forum for testing. I used phpbb on it but later I realised that it has a big demerit that the URL it gives does not contain the content of title of thread. I checked this forum and here also the issue is same.
Its never a demerit for this forum not including title of thread in the URL because it can still be included.
I guess we have discussed issue some time ago, it only requires the admin to do alot of work before title can be included in a thread URL. Mean while that update was only included in SMF version 2.0 hence this forum operate on version 1. 1. 19. though it can still be done but at a very high risk.
Hence I suggest it shouldn't be change anyways because there have been millions of threads since the forum was built and trying to change this just for some people could lead to a crash in the forum if not well taken care of.
If you wish to try update your personal forum you can go to admin panel: Configuration -> Modification Settings-> Miscellaneous and change it from there, but it's at owners risk.
Was this not taken into consideration while choosing forum software ? Or does it not matter much? Are there some special benefits of SMF over other popular forum softwares like xenforo or vbulletin?
Back then when this forum was created it was not yet an issues for people to include title of a thread in their URL, that update was initiated in 2010 and this forum was created in 2009 or below.
You can't compare this SMF with other forum software providers because it has a high Level of privacy that others don't have. Satoshi knew what he wanted by using SMF because even your IP address can be released to anyone not even the admin that is the level of privacy it has plus other factors.