I really couldn't agree more with you marcotheminer , It would be nice to be able to connect using Social media such as Twitter , Google+ and an email verification won't hurt anyone too that should prevent some BOTS from spamming (only famous email providers should be used like outlook , gmail , hotmail , yahoo etc... )
Also captcha's as you said ... I mean captcha's are really so useful and the forum can even earn money from it since we have thousands of people connecting everyday here
For the new forum software we was waiting for a Beta release in December and nothing really happened so I'am pretty sure that the Final release won't be in February also last time I asked the developper he said that the release beta is very soon , probably in some weeks who knows . I just hope we won't be dissapointed
If nothing of what you said gets added to the Beta , you should move this thread to new software forum

~ Madness