Change, we need it

[Slayne]

To give folks an idea on how complicated it is now, here's a quoted post from another VB user who has a job actually creating skins.

As some of you may know, we started our vBulletin 4 updates with the Fundamental skin. We made significant progress, but when we delved into the internals of the style it became abundantly clear that the new "template engine" (used in quotes because we feel it is an inaccurate description of the poorly thought out and executed template system) is, at best, bugged and incomplete. vBulletin's customers' complaints over the "template engine" number in the hundreds and can be found on the vBulletin forum and blogs.

We did a little digging, a little spying, a little survelliance and have uncovered a certain rumor (from a reliable, internal source), that fixing the "template engine" is now a priority and that we may see a significant overhaul near the time of the 4.04 release. I want to stress very, very strongly, at this point, this is just a rumor. However, it is our opinion that, as the complaints stack higher and higher, an announcement will be made soon confirming the above.

To that end, we are temporarily suspending our vBulletin 4 updates until the overhaul. This is not a decision of convenience. In its present state the "template engine" is simply unusable for anything other than simple customizations. We absolutely share the vBulletin community's extreme disappointment with the code, CSS, and new "template engine".

We will keep you updated with the latest and greatest vBulletin developments.

I'm hoping he's right, as the current method is really a headache. It could easily take me 1-3 hours a night for a couple of weeks to really get the forum back to where it was before, which only took me about 2 hours.

Going to stalk their forums for a bit and see if they officially announce better support for styles in the 4.0.4 update. So far all I've seen is a "we had priority work to get started on even though 4.0.3 isn't finished".

[Raistlin]

What cost(s) are we looking at for a custom one(s)?

[Slayne]

They range on the group - usually starts around 15 and caps around 40 per style. Price usually varies on complexity and amount of custom art used for icons and such.

The two primary groups I watch are both not making skins for 4.0 right now due to the aforementioned issues with style creating.
Sorta wish I hadn't taken the jump into 4.0 when I did, little late to try going back