Me / Bid: I am a very experienced web application developer based in the US. I can complete this project for the equivalent of $7000 in bitcoin (~583 today) and the project will take approximately 3-4 months to complete. All debugging will be completed and a bug report feature will be included in the event that anything is missed.

Features: I can mirror all the current SMF features as well as the new features/ways of doing things that you outlined.

Security / Maintainability / Code: Your new site/forum solution will be built using a very secure PHP development framework which I am very familiar and experienced with. The project will be developed using MVC programming methodology, a common and proven structured programming technique. Function names and parameters will be consistent throughout the program. It will be easily modifiable and maintainable to anyone with knowledge of PHP and MVC. I can also implement AJAX functionality for quick edit, etc.

License: I will retain ownership of the code to sell, reuse, or repackage. You will receive a license to use it indefinitely on any Bitcoin Talk domain (1 production installation and as many development/test installations as you need). You will be allowed to modify it in any way but not to share or sell it.

Database: I use MySQL, my queries and database structure are VERY FAST! I promise!

UI / UX: I'm all about minimalism and user experience. No problem making it look like this and making it skinnable. I've done all of that before and I am a master with CSS.

Groups: Groups will be customizable, but I'll create the predefined groups you asked for.

Stats: No problem, I'm an expert when it comes to reporting.

Limits: All routine things you're asking for, no problem!

Registration / OpenID: Everything looks good here.

Everything you've outlined here is possible and won't be an issue. Please get back to me soon if you intend on hiring me for this project. I will provide you with my resume and examples of my work.