If you are using e-commerce contributed module you may want to checkout the latest ecommerce module - "UberCart". I have reviewed it and I have only positive things to report at the moment.

For Ubercart you need Drupal 5. Ubercart has a good look and its very easy to setup and manage while not sacrificing the key ecommerce functionality.

Checkout more details on http://www.ubercart.org/

BTW there was a functionality I needed for my ecommece shop to Calculate Shipping by weight of Product. A simple one line code change was suggested . Here is the details.

http://www.ubercart.org/forum/support/587/shipping_weight

Forums in Drupal needs lot of improvement. It is very light weight and just has minimum functionality.

Drupal also lack good image support. Lot of work is needed to make a drupal site appealing esp forums. But thanks to the contribution of many drupaliers, creating new forum look is not an issue at all. With simple theme customizations and adding flatforum module you can build a professional looking forum.

1. To change the look of drupal forum here is the code.

http://drupal.org/node/58532#comment-114527

2. You can also use flatforum contributed module. It adds "forum-looks" to the drupal forums