[John James Jacoby]

The reason why “full integration” isn’t ‘recommended’ is because WordPress is pretty sloppy with the number of database queries that it runs, sometimes into the hundreds per page load. bbPress tends to be very efficient in this department, so going from 9 queries to 30 queries for no real reason doesn’t make sense.

_ck_ made a topic about how to create a query without doing full integration, and I highly recommend using that method in most instances. It will allow you to have much more control over what you’re doing and how it’s doing it.

For the sake of being easy, full integration will provide you with every available WordPress function and ability, many of which you will never need or use. I personally am using full integration because I’m still poking my head around trying to figure out what’s all possible to do with it, and it does work very well, just a little slower than a non-fully integrated install of bbPress.