I just switched to the MyBBPro theme which removes all the simplified and dumbed down crap and shows a forum as a forum should look and avatars and announcements are even normal. With the exception of the recent posts being at the very bottom and the blinding whiteness of it all, it is much more functional. Of the other two themes I have available, Responsive myBB and RoundoDarko, RoundoDarko is the most terrible. I swear it is made for TicTok children. Keep the RoundoDarko theme as a portal if you must but put a link or something to a normal looking forum.

I want to see a listing of threads, when and who created them and by whom and when they were replied to not a snippet of the thread or pictures or in the case of EndtheMadnessNow's excellent Vintage B&W Photos thread, an entire wall of pictures that certainly uses more bandwidth than a text based interface.

This is not simply a case of being an old cow that is resistant or can't adapt to change but the MyBBpro theme and modifications to it should be the direction you go. It is the closest to the old RN3 and should be easiest to tweak?

I owned, ran, admin'd and extensively modified and customized a vBulletin forum for four years. It can't be that hard to change the colors in the MyBBPro theme and move recent posts back to the top and make it an option as the default landing page.