Guys, we're a bit new to forum hosting but have a clan of about 40 guys who want to run a forum. We currently have a forumer forum under phpBB. I set that one up. A member volunteered to take over admin duties (I handle a lot of other things) and the first thing he wanted to do was to switch over to IPB. He says it's much more powerful, easier to work with and allows a lot more flexibility.

First, is that accurate?

Second, upon looking at a conversion utility from IPB I noticed here that you can't use it with Forumer. They give you no access to the server itself. That got me thinking. Is the path with Forumer a one-way path? In other words, if we come here and spend 6 months posting and such are we likely to come to regret the choice given that we won't have any way to backup our forums or move to another solution (like hosting it ourselves) later?

I'd just hate to get everyone rolling here only to have to start them all over again a month from now (or later).