Wow, that's interesting, weak in look and functionality. I thought they were pretty good, but each to their own.
I don't think that Yet Another Forum is for DNN3, but I could be mistaken, they are the only other free forum I know of..
You know you can create your own themes for these forums too if you don't like the look of them, but functionality wise, well, I beg to differ, I've been evaluating the forums extensively lately - (decision time for me!!) and was very impressed with this latest release, and I'm not about to give away any secrets, but there's some more cool functionality coming out in the next release.
This forum is part of the open source contribution, and done extensively by Chris Paterra. I'd call it work in progress, and overall, it's an ever improving application and this round I thought was pretty darn good considering it's less than 1 year ago this project was to be integrated and has had hundreds and hundreds of hours to make it work.
However, that being just my opinion, and that's all I can give you, I think the next step you might have to take is to invest a few dollars and buy one from http://www.activemodules.com
Nina Meiers