modeller:
it would be the perfect time to upgrade the forum to SMF 2.0.4 - get it over with. It's free and shouldn't take all that long. I can't imagine why they wouldn't do it.
Whatever it is - it never is "just" or "only" - there is always something that bites back. Which means you need to have a fallback plan.
I can see that they didnt "throw in an upgrade" during this cleanup/stabilasation exercise. That is a sign of mature handling of running a service.