I agree completely with the previous comments made to this post. vBulletin is extremely scalable, and is in use as the de facto standard for high-traffic forums well beyond what SecondLife.com hosts. So the argument that vBulletin is to blame is just hogwash.

The saddest part of this all, is that there are many highly-useful posts in the old archives which will now be lost once and for all. A lot of history from oldbies discussing (and often resolving) first-generation grid issues.