[John James Jacoby]

With a name like grassrootspa, I figured this would make more sense.

I for one hope the core of bbPress never includes that kind of thing, as it works perfectly well as it is without needing to turn a thousand features off.

There are plugins available, and if they don’t suit your needs, newer betters ones will come in the future.

I think what you want, is BuddyPress + bbPress.