Rusty,
I'm relatively new here, but I totally feel your pain. I've been running a Yahoo Group devoted to blues since 2001. I'm a software developer by trade. So it didn't take me long to get frustrated and start writing a forum myself. Actually, I tried to take it a step further and tried to write a content management system (CMS).
But after a while, the project started to lose a lot of momentum as real life caught up and I realized that there are tons and tons of free solutions out there.
For the record, I finally settled on Ning. It may not be right for everybody (especially those that like a simple forum without a lot of bells and whistles.) But I wanted to do more than just feature a discussion forum. We've added a photos section, video and even recently ... live online TV broadcasts of real live blues as it happens down here in Texas. All of this was free, and it was braindead simple to setup.
You can see it all here:
http://www.texasbluesroadhouse.comYall are all welcome to come over and play in my sandbox and help determine the direction we take. Or you can setup your own and we can trade links or something and help each other out. Or you can just keep what you have here. But if I can help in any ways, we're all trying to promote the blues. So I'll do whatever I can to help.
Peace,