Makes the message-board and forum bearable too, although I think the forum’s basically been abandoned as too sprawling and full of subforums. I’d probably drop that link if I were you.

I think tribbyBoard is a suitable threaded guestbook for your purposes — basically the same style as the current message board but easy to host on-site:

http://www.tribby.com/board/

I think a more complex forum would put off more people than it would attract.

And I do blame MS for the bulk of shitty code on the net — not only is Internet Explorer’s stylesheet box model completely broken, it arbitrarily renders non-legal HTML…