In reply to Fieldfare:
Yep totally agree with this Articuno. An example of such a forum is:
http://stargazerslounge.com/
But of course almost all other forums use this design. Personally I don't mind something that's different as long as different doesn't mean difficult. The problem with this one is simply that it takes you a lot more clicks to get where you want to go - even if you have learned where everything is.
Most forums are usually based on a software package. I don't know if this is a modified piece of software or has been built from the ground up (which would seem a strange thing to do, not least because of all the work). It doesn't seem to have any name that I can see but if it is a software package it might be fairly straightforward to revert to some more standardized format.