"One of the ugliest examples of anything WordPress". Wait.. what?!

It's a plugin that has a team of core developers, dedicated plugins, themes, meetings (BuddyCamps) across the globe and dozens (maybe hundreds) of people who make a living doing BuddyPress projects only.

Seven years ago it was among the first plugins that completely transformed WordPress into something other then a blog or CMS. This was a few years before solutions like WooCommerce, BBPress and Easy Digital Downloads. This also meant that a ton of code has been through many iterations and some of it could be improved. They core development team has been extremely hard at work doing exactly this, and the project is healthier than ever.

BuddyPress has been an excellent solution for thousands of projects that needed a social networking solution that is free, gives you full control over your data and can be extended & themed with relative ease. It has been downloaded TWO MILLION times.

Things can be improved, a lot of people have been very vocal about the project (I've been certainly one of them) but to call it an "ugly" project is not only incorrect (just as your notion of "price-points" and "purchases" when describing the free plugin & 500+ extensions) but it's also a rude towards the people that have started this.

Sorry if I come across rude Bob, but I don't want you or other readers of WPTavern to get the impression BuddyPress is not an extremely valid option for building a social network. Come to BuddyCamp Miami in a few weeks and see what can be done with it ;-)