As has been addressed by others, one of the best features of the boards are the members (who provide useful, fun and enthusiastic) feedback. I support a change that enhances the user profile and personal contribution to the site, so that users have the ability to blog, post their own photo stream and reply with comments to other members outside of the traditional thread method.
It might also be interesting to collaborate more with Spacing's site, adding a forum that links their unique outlook with our ability to comment and generate discussion.
UrbanToronto could position itself as an urban-minded think tank and resource for decision-makers when it comes to how this city and region is built. For example, the board successfully argued against the Ontario Safety League's inane objection to the wavedecks. But that pile-on was fairly contained to the wavedeck thread. We could have been more vocal and viral had the forum been revamped to make the discussion more prominent on the boards, the threads be tagged and the info be spread to other sites (facebook, twitter, etc). Toronto has a lot of exciting milestones ahead, including the G 20, 2010 Mayoral election, provincial 2011 election and the 2015 Pan Am Games. We could use this forum and the urban point-of-view to better demonstrate different considerations. I'm not exactly sure how this could be done, but user blogs and an area to discuss city-building (as a whole) might be a good place to start.
Also, didn’t the old UrbanToronto have a live chatroom? Could this be re-explored?