[Darth-Apple]

Yeah... about MyBB's future (and whether it has one), there's not a lot I can say that isn't just repeating myself from the last time the subject came up here. However, the more time goes on, the less optimistic I get .

As for this whole "MyBB 1.8.25 with responsive default theme" thing, I have to admit I'm pretty skeptical. They'd have had to completely re-do the templates, and that would have broken a lot of plugins. Sure, I got most of them working on my own board (which has a responsive default theme), but it took a fair amount of tinkering even for relatively simple plugins. I think it would end up becoming a de facto "1.9" - and I can see a lot of people sticking with 1.8.24 (either because they dislike the new responsive theme or because the plugins aren't yet stable or updated). These users wouldn't want to forgo future bug fixes and security updates, so I can see there being a lot of pressure on the MyBB developers to maintain a separate "1.8.24a/b/c/etc." branch for these people.

Perhaps they bit off more than they could chew by going the full "1.9" route; however, the alternative doesn't sound very easy either.

That's a very good point. I could see this precise problem becoming an issue if they went this route. It would be a disaster if compatibility became fragmented across different 1.8.x releases.

One viable solution would be to include two themes by default. The current would remain the default, per se, but a new, fully responsive theme could be included to have bleeding edge mobile responsiveness and modernization. It would achieve broad compatibility while still allowing theme developers to create a plethora of responsive designs based on a mobile-friendly default.

There has been talk of doing a community-made responsive design as a "skeleton theme" in the past. Something of this sort could be a very good solution.