How about a traffic light system for vendors with;
Purple Pre-orders
Green Shipped on time
Amber Late/Unreliable (+ 1 month)
Red Severe Delay/Incompetent (+ 2 months)
Black Scam (taken money and run, or blatant lie)
Does SMF have a plug-in of this sort? I doubt we're going to get anyone to custom code
a forum upgrade.