While I agree that feature creep on image (and text) boards sucks, I don't get why they didn't switch to Wakaba (and Kareha) back in the day. Last time the source code leaked, it was a mess.

Just take the site down for a bit, give the HTML/CSS output a 4chan coat of paint, and people would get used to it. They've previously adjusted the theme, added (You)s and hovering boxes, CAPTCHAs, all that stuff - which used to be the domain of clients/userscripts.

The web has moved on, but at the end of the day I think most posters just wanted message boards where they enter comments into some boxes, then the site serves them pages full of messages. Features like catalogs, archives, and so on did fundamentally change how the site works IMO. (And then there's /pol/...)