phpbb would also be my choice after vBulletin. That's if you can fight off the spam that phpbb forums usually get.
All forums get spam. There are no exceptions, including this one using vbulletin. There are mods to phpbb which you can add that deter spammers. I installed several on writingwise.com. Spammers sign up but get no further.
As far as smf, I've never used it but it looks very basic. I'm not sure how adapatable it is to templating and, iirc, AA, you make some pretty neat graphical sites. I have used the joomla!board and didn't like it at all because it was too basic.