I know that this generally isn't a popular idea, but perhaps it may be time to move Lea off of vBulletin? I'm not sure if spending the money on another vBulletin is really worth the investment this time around.
For one thing, the site never fully recovered from the last time this happened - membership and posting activity has dropped considerably from Lea's heyday. I imagine Lea's population and activity will take another hit this time 'round - it may be better to perhaps nap the domain and point it to free (or at least less expensive) forum software such as Proboards or Invision.
We may lose some features though, but if the focus is more on keeping the forum community together, good friends, good conversation, etc. then theoreticaly we don't need a lot of fancy bells and whistles. After all, bells and whistles does not a community make.

*Originally posted by Wicked on Feral's Lea Halalela Forum Temporary Site on April 14, 2011 at 10:35 AM*