As far as technical specifics go, adding a form-based system for requests would save members a bit of hassle as far as templates go, and would look more professional to boot. I'm sure there's already a couple form-to-post mods out there, and I know it's a concept that was thrown around rather often back while I was staff, but we never really got around to implementing it.
As far as theme, it should really be something that fits the feel of the rp more than the theme of it, if you know what I mean. User friendliness and the board index would have to be one and the same, really. Any changes made to the index would have to be as user-friendly as possible.