@_ck_ -- bbPress.org 2.0 is under way and should be live within a week or two -- we kicked off the project after we got the design source files from Sam.

Forum plugins for WP are popular, and would be more so if they were as powerful as bbPress already is. With better integration with WordPress tens of millions of users will be one-click away from having a forum perfectly integrated with their design and user system.

This is sort of possible today, but it's too hard right now. Themes don't really mesh. BuddyPress does some juggling to make integration easier but it has too much overhead.