Are you a Star Trek Fan? Well, even if you're not, I'd still like you to take a look at my recently finished forums.

http://stoforums.com/

I'd like your honest feedback (not too harsh!) on what can be improved, as well as what's still needed.

The hardest part for me is getting the traffic to the site, and getting visitors to return. My lifelong dream is to create from scratch a big forum-based site with over 1,000 members (hard, I know). I started at the ground level with this game, so I'm really excited abot these forums.

Well you're definitely on the right track. Domain name, niche topic, vBulletin forum, custom skin, good number of forums. May I suggest you create another forum to talk about various species? ie Klingon Talk, Ferengi Talk, etc.

white on black looks very nice, but difficult to read.
though I also have black site:lol:

Well.. you have goals… you have ambition… and you have the humbleness of asking for help.. You my friend… you are on the right track …
About your site.. I don’t like forums design’s.. however I like your’s .. but you need different icons..

Getting traffic to your site.. I think that it would help if you start to make some SEO (search engine optimization) you can read this great article I found this weak (it is simple tutorial about SEO):
http://www.bruceclay.com/

Getting people to come back… for that you need to offer them something… like wallpapers, games.. and tutorials on how to build ship’s in 3D or in 2D (by example)…
Offer font’s, access to start trek merchandising sites…
This away start track fans would have lots of content to explore.. and would come back more often.. This “connections” to other sites would bring you more visitors and your site would score highest on search engines..