In 2026 (but actually, many years ago, since users started visiting sites on mobile, especially Facebook), the key to a forum, in my opinion, is ease of navigation.
All forums, however, are pretty much stuck in the same space as they were 20 years ago.
On mobile (I think 90% of users now visit sites on mobile), wpForo is very chaotic, and in my opinion, only the essentials should remain. Here's a list:

Home Page:

- Section image to delete (or disable for mobile)
- The latest discussions under categories only create chaos; if a user is interested, they can open the category and read them.

Category:

- Category description: remove or add to the discussions;

Discussion:

- Simplify the editor as much as possible
- The "Title" field when replying is unnecessary
- Forum Jump: delete it, since no one uses it anyway
- The section summarizing posts, users, reactions, etc. is very nice, but I'd also move this to the bottom and not the top.
- RSS button: does anyone use RSS feeds for individual threads?

And then, in my opinion, it should also have all the mods included at a reasonable price to encourage users who, for example, want to switch to xenforo.

PS
I want to clarify that my criticisms are only constructive because I consider wpForo the best forum plugin for WP.