Tom Otvos wrote:
It is less of a dollar thing and more of an effort thing. That, plus the ever controversial discussion of what a new AN should look like. Although the immediate issues are merely time and effort.
Is it possible to secure the site with a small amount of effort? I guess a Joomla based site requires quite a lot of effort to keep updated

I recently created a forum using Discourse. It's free software and I only pay $10 a month in hosting fees for it, and you can update it with one click. That said, it's quite different to this forum, and would require people to adjust a little (although not that much).
If people are attempting to hack, I guess security is the most pressing. Looks can be decided upon later
Let me know if I can assist. I'm a web dev by trade.