Somehow I don't think that changing the # of forums will really scale down the database. The large portion of the DB is the posts and flames.

At best, it would save query time, as there'd be less tables...but then there'd be more posts in those tables so maybe it would make it even slower to load a few hundred extra posts in that table.

Bah! The only way to really downscale the DB is to 1) delete the thousands of users who've never posted (or have only the "Hi I'm new here post") or 2) delete the hundred flame posts.