The board for free? Sorry, but then there instantly would be a "free" support site. Never going to happen, and dumb.
25 bucks every 6 months is hardly anything. Xbox live is more than that, If you have one google ad anywhere on your site that alone will pay for the charges. Its grateful we don't have to pay between major releases unlike EVERY other software (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, hell the whole adobe family)
Do you know how many illegal IPB board are out there? I know a very successful one with over 100k members and its illegal. How do I know this? I was a sub-admin there and I notied the differences from a nulled board and legal one. Point being, you pay for support and access to resources (such as mods, articles and tutorials) which illegal board users can't. Its there method instead of encrypting the software with ioncube or something.
Then maybe you haven't read, It gives you Member Access on the IPS domain. (Resources, Forums, etc)
Also why is there "Open Emoticons (temp)" when there is already an emoticon button?