What's your aim for launching a Bitcoin forum? Obviously, if its to avoid censorship, and add another forum to the mix then that's fine. However, do you have any niches that you'll be focusing on within Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies?
Why are you guys suggesting to use epochtalk? If it was ready for usage, wouldn't Theymos already be using it for Bitcointalk?
It needs testing. Any good software needs to be tested vigorously, and having a larger amount of users testing the software is better than just a select few.
If it was my forum and I was an inexperienced forum host, I would want to be using the most robust, proven, widely supported forum software availablethat's certainly not epochtalk (at least for now).
Decent advice. Well documented forums are probably better for those that are inexperienced, and there's always the possibility of importing the database to different software in the future.