Recently I installed a forum for testing. I used phpbb on it but later I realised that it has a big demerit that the URL it gives does not contain the content of title of thread. I checked this forum and here also the issue is same. Was this not taken into consideration while choosing forum software ? Or does it not matter much? Are there some special benefits of SMF over other popular forum softwares like xenforo or vbulletin?
Do you mean permalink, a forum script is very different from WordPress where the title of the topic shows up in the URL I don't think it is a demerit because even if the title is not showing in the URL the search engine will still catch it, like you create this thread 15 minutes ago and Google index it right away.