5
if he's focusing more on newbb -> phpbb -> ipb, etc, then it might be a fair comparison (tho obviously newbb loses)
fyi, phpbb and ipb ported modules exist for XOOPS at bbpixel.com, and over at dev.xoops.org, i'm working on a fully integrated phpbb, but i'm not touching XOOPS core, which means XOOPS private messaging and whatnot will not be changed to the phpbb method.
buddylist abilities could be added to xoops, it would be a nice feature.