Fair points. I guess I consider esoTalk to be somewhat of a lost cause in terms of the way it's built. It's a pain to implement fixes and features, maintain, and is pretty limited in what it can do (and how it can be extended). Simply put, I didn't enjoy working on it.

When I said "I have produced some low-quality code and APIs that will surely need revision", I'm mostly talking about more semantic things like class naming and organization. The majority of Flarum's architecture is very solid, testable, and will be easy to maintain. Doesn't compare to esoTalk.

Admittedly, if I just wanted to start a business and make some cash, you're right: I probably could've just persisted with esoTalk. But it's not all about money – it's also about doing the best work that I can, enjoying it, and making damn good forum software with great potential.

There will eventually be a migration path from esoTalk to Flarum, and I still merge PRs from time to time... so I like to think I'm not completely abandoning the esoTalk folk!