The wysiwyg interface of vBulletin is actually quite old... Newer technologies these days allows for a complete visual of the text your are typing and its format. So if I were to bold this sentence, I would not see the bold tags, it would appear to be bold in this form.

I'll look into wysiwyg editors, and find out if its feasible to integrate a new editor into vBulletin..

And yes, vBulletin is VERY easy to start up with the installation software. However getting a forum going is a completely different ball-game Also, this forum is VERY customized..