I definitely agree that the current forum module needs substantially beefing up if not replacing. In particular there are a few missing functions that make it very difficult to use with students:
- Lock topics: The only way to stop a bad thread is to move it to another forum where students cannot reply. This is confusing for user and adds additional work for moderators who have to message offending posters to let them know what has happened.
- Merge topics: Students will quite frequently post topics which have already been discussed. Without a merge option this is very difficult to clean up.
- Report to Moderator: This is very important as it allows regular users to flag inappropriate messages to a tutor or moderator.
Whether it happens in the form of ForumNG or not I think this is something that really needs looking at in Moodle.