[@johnjamesjacoby Keymaster 15 years ago]

The WordPress core tab UI is built into the header area of the settings page, and consequentially does not have an API to go along with it. The other issue with using tabs instead of new settings pages, the navigation doesn’t appear anywhere else and requires more clicks to get to secondary tabs.

I’m not a fan of nesting options inside so many tabs. bbPress core settings aren’t the place to put theme options. You can use the WordPress settings API if you want to add additional settings that fit side-by-side with bbPress core features. Anything else probably deserves it’s own unique UI and page.