Unless it's because you just really like the style of these forums, I can't see why you would want to pay that amount of money to start one yourself. phpBB is a great, full-featured system, and has plenty of features that I wish these forums had, although this BBS offers more options when it comes to how you view it.

Basically, if you view everything in flat mode, I can't see why you would want to spend $229 over FREE.