I've installed PHP-Nuke 7.0 and Movable Type on my personal intranet. In fact, Movable Type is now on my laptop as well…I think PHP-Nuke will fit on there too. This means I get to experiment without chewing up my bandwidth.
PHP-Nuke is a big, sprawling piece of software. I've been looking it over and with some serious planning I can think of some serious stuff that can be done with it. For instance (with the exception of trackbacks, and I believe that's forthcoming as well), cloning Daily Kos would be pretty straightforward.
And I am doing some planning. I have a whole lot of bandwidth and storage that I intend to put to good use.
It's actually way early to get specific about functionality and such, but I'm playing with design elements too. A first draft of a banner will give a clue as to what I have in mind. Hopefully I'll drive the editorial staff of The American Prospect out of their minds.