I figured it was probably time for another update. While nothing has been finished, I have made a lot of progress on several areas.
The forums are coming along nicely. While I still have to create some more images for the buttons, I’d say the default forum skin is probably 80-85% done. I may try and work in a few additional “hacks” to give the forums some additional flexibility.
The news system has come a long way, yet still has a long way to go. Rather than using a pre-built one, I’ve created my own. This allows me to have a system that works exactly how I want it to, while at the same time giving me the chance to expand my PHP skills. I’ve integrated a BBCode parser so news submissions and comments can contain BBCode.
As I said, the news system still has a long way to go. Two of my main goals for the next several weeks include building the admin section, and optimizing the code a bit better. I’d like to add some AJAX functions to it, but that will only come at release if I have time.
For those of you that have actually seen the site, you can forget everything that I showed you before. 
Over the past two days, I’ve created a completely new design layout. I still have some additional testing on it in various web browsers, but if all goes well, it’ll allow me to do some very cool stuff in the future. 
Yes, I am still planning on launching the site early this year. No, I don’t have a specific date available. It’ll be here when it’s ready. Remember, this is just a one man show (for now).