Such a lovely person aren't you?
Why are you so against upgrading to a new version that will provide the very options someone is asking about? Even if you still decide to switch to different software in the future at least people get the options they want now rather than years down the line.
Upgrading to the newest SMF version might not be that easy if many changes were introduced by theymos to SMF currently used by bitcointalk over the years. It's also likely that upgrading would increase the attack surface, bitcointalk hasn't been hacked for several years now, newer SMF versions are unlikely to be as tried and tested as bitcointalk's with how big of a target it is.
