Yes they are. Which is why the current forums will be moved to another domain. It grew into a monstrosity.

On the other hand, I do like forums in general.  It would be nice have an official help forum dedicated to just the client software (and protocol) and how to use/integrate/modify it.  It should come with a link to the FAQ before posting.

Also, as a mailing list is (kind of) limited to text only, a forum makes it easier to discuss graphical subjects such as UI.

Then again given the kind of people bitcoin seems to attract, it might be unrealistic to think a normal forum can be maintained... On the other hand, people that misbehave can then be sent to the bitcointalk forums :-)

JS