Wordpress thoughts

When I update my site I will be turning hard-coded sections into Wordpress and the vB forum into xenForo.

I like the look of Wordpress and have found a theme that looks nice.

I don't need full integration really, as my articles will be informational and it doesn't matter too much if people cannot comment on them.

But I wondered what the current options are for integrating the two, it would be a nice bonus if people who are forum members can leave comments in the Wordpress articles. Also if selected forum members can be given permissions to write articles. So I think this means I need a "bridge"?

Yes - so registered forum members can also log into the main site (running WP) and leave comments, or if their permission was high enough, write articles.

However after looking into this a bit more, it's clear the simplest and easiest thing is to keep the site and forum independent, and just style the forum to look like the WP theme. I'm keen to avoid lots of pain later on if I update a highly customised or integrated forum.