We could always come up with a theme/style that does not display avatars on posts. If everyone dislikes avatars, we could make it the default. I appreciate everyone's honest input on what they see because I'll make a lot of changes. I'm not too worried about look/feel ... even to the extreme of making it look 95% like the current forums, we could do that. I'm first concerned about the functionality/features of the forum software and if that will work. There's a ton for me to learn just by moderating an active forum on this.
Dave, as I've told you previously, while I've temporarily put up my Twitter avatar here, I am not wild about having avatars by every post. They distract from the content of the posts and makes us look more like the, gulp, SPURS fan forum!
My personal preference would be to allow members to use avatars on their PROFILE page but to keep them out of the BBS.
Again, just my personal opinion.