Template hooks are lame. With massive DOM abuse, I can get stuff where I want it, though.
I've gotten the non-Synthesis postbit stuff completed, without any template changes! Most of the trivial template changes have been dealt with. I'll probably write small plugins to effect the rather minor changes to the main templates for threads and forums so I don't have to worry about them getting out of date in the future. The actual forum blocks need the royal treatment, though . After that, it's just the forum home page, the header, footer, and navbar, which will be a load of fun, then the non-synthesis stuff is complete. The part which will take forever, though, is the Synthesis postbit (completely different from default) and forum page (very different); I'm debating whether to simplify the structure like in that demo a while back.