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"stench of phpBB" is the most compelling thing I've read in some time.

Ouch!

In the Stack Overflow podcasts, that is the one app they strived to be so vastly different from.

Keep in mind the author-icon/info-on-left concept isn't exclusive to phpBB, it's used by most forum software. It's used so frequently because it's what the user expects which is what drove this layout: making the site easier to use for first time users coming from Google.

The difference is that SO is not a forum, it's a question and answer site. A key distinction. I think SO's current design serves its purpose well.

One of the reasons SO was created is cause forums are usually so bad at serving as Q&A sites.

Personally, I'd much rather be compared to phpBB than SO. PhpBB has a proven track record as one of the most powerful and widely-used forum tools on the web. SO is still young, and could very well peter out. I've always found its ad placement extremely grating.