It's somewhat ironic to see people bashing the use of php nuke and other similar vehicles for website developement. Glad you are doing it on a site that is "powered by vBulletin"
Using something like phpnuke does not negate the use of dreamweaver, or coding raw code. Some people use it as a jump point, others just as it is "out of the box". Would you rather see a team that has no web skills have a lame site that has a front page saying "yes, we exist" but nothing else? I would rather see teams have sites that are useful to their team members, using whatever tools they have to make these. And if you have ever tried to seriously modify a portal system using php, you will find that you do indeed need to apply some serious php knowledge, not to mention the work that goes into customizing the site's look...... Themes from other developers are nice, but they too often serve as jump points.
As far as winning an award for best website using purely phpnuke, i doubt it - too limited. Morally, I guess it would be like someone winning the competition with a robot manufactured by a bunch of professional engineers. Oh, nevermind......
I agree with Max, professionals use the tools they have at their disposal.