Jack is correct, there's no way around that at the moment.
Unfortunately we're using the last version of the forum software allowed by the license (license expired Dec 11th '07).
It's a bit strange. The license is valid lifetime but the upgrades are not. Now vBulletin 4 is out which looks real sweet.
An upgrade costs 175 dollars and the whole suite (which I would want) costs 250. Don't know when I can afford an upgrade, shame it's so expensive.
Edit: Check out the new features here:
http://www.vbulletin.com/index.php