Even polls just for fun?
Gawwwwd.

What's the point in joining if you can't contribute anything, even for a week?

I've joined several forums which dont let you post, I've not had a problem with that. If I liked the place I still read everything and stuck around. Most spammers wont stick around just to place a link, a lot just forget.

I feel like that would do a lot more bad than good. It would discourage and isolate the new members that actually want to contribute even more. Plus I don't feel like there's a big problem with spam here at all.

Riiigggghhhhtttttt...................

That's a horrible idea.

I don't see why genuine posters should have to lose out to a few spammers who are dealt with anyway.

I really think posts made in the Current Events Philosophy and Religion threads should count towards post count, that's where a lot of the most well-written thought out posts are,and where the best discussions are, and I think there should be some recognition for that.

I think moderation should be stricter. Posts with close to zero content (f.ex just "lol") should be deleted. Less crap to sift through when reading through threads. ;)

Not wanting to go all nazi, but there could also be a limit on the size of signatures. I know there's a limit on how much text (and code) there can be in a sig, but it doesn't take much text to link to a large picture or two. Maybe there's a way one could have limit in lines instead. I've seen it on other forums, but I don't know if it's possible with vbulletin.

That'll happen when I get paid for doing this

It's not really a big enough problem to enforce a strict rule. Anyone who makes one with an excessively sized picture is asked to change it or has it removed anyway.