Yes, Knez is doing a great job and it will take some time... the forum desperately needed php and other versions updates that I specifically dragged my feet on because I knew it would break many of the custom Mods I purchased and added years ago.
The main page had a dynamic frame based Mod that would display News, messages, stats, and other member info. and anchor this info in sub-pages; it was implemented way back in 2015 and whenever I tested forum updates, this was one mod that freaked out and stopped to work, as did other SMF Mods.
So literally 99% of the new issues could not be avoided when the forum got a code face-lift. We had far too many security issues with the older SFM versions so trust me, we needed to update. Chris helped me back in the day, manually modify code so we had some cool features like default alphabetical sorting of topics on certain download boards; but unfortunately, updates just replace the procedures with never versions, and thus wipes out any user modified code in the core areas.
That being said, I am sure we can add some new modern mods that will be compatible as time goes on; I am in the process of looking thru my invoices of what I purchased and to see if there are new versions of the mods. At this point it is unfair to have Knez shell out cash for all these mods, so I suggest as I find each one, we can make a poll, and if it is wanted, then we can all pitch in.