/me pins this, and thanks everybody
three of the biggest new features are:
1) on the forum front page, you can minimize and maximize categories, there are images next to the category name, IE, BetaONE News and Community, click them and have fun
2) you can make the changes permanent in the user control panel, there's an option in there to permanently hide and show categories under the change board layout link
3) quick reply in this version is integrated into the board and not a seperate code hack, to make it open by default go to the user cp, board settings, and choose yes to open fast reply automatically when available
as Zone said, if anybody finds any bugs (i'm sure they are here somewhere...), or has any suggestions just let us know