Setting Spiders for a certain style

I use to run an IPB board, and with that they have an option to show the style that spiders will see. I've read that it's bad to change the things on your site for spiders and it being different for users...but since its still showing the same content, just different style so its easier for spiders to crawl...is that wrong?

The reason I'm bringing this up is b/c of vBSEO.com's skin. When that releases, I was planning on using it. Then I got to thinking, wouldn't it be great to let spiders crawl more easily with that theme, still indexing the content but showing the users a more graphical site?

I want to see what some of the SEO guys here think. I just figured...why would IPB have it built into their software if it would hurt their customers websites if they use it like that...

It does hurt. and i'm living proof. and its the main reason i switched to vb from IPB. click the link in my sig next to hondaswap for the vbseo log. you can see what i started with and what i ended up with.

The main thing to remember, is that bot's don't load javascript nor css files. Thus, it is HIGHLY important to keep ALL style seperated from content. the OEM vB template sucks ass to put it bluntly.

i've begun work on my own template, which is 100% css powered, semantic markup. In the end, my goal is to mimic the exact OEM vB template, but with propper semantic markup, and no tables for non-tabular data.

I haven't touched it in a while, and it doesn't work in IE completely (because IE sucks ass... and i haven't and won't begin to hack for it until its done... but thats another topic )

It's very basic, but I think you can get the picture...
SEO Template

CSS is embedded only for development purposes, and theres some OEM code shoved at the bottom in comments. Obviosuly, that will be removed/changed.

I dont see why it would hurt...its almost just like the archive and the main site...the archive is just displayed differently but with the same content as the site.

Or am I just not thinking about this in the right fashion...

the archive is a huge problem too, which is why vBSEO gives the option to disable it

OH! So it's a good idea to disable the archive then? I wish there was a suggestion list as to how to set it up for the best optimization :(

The default settings should be fine. vBSEO uses the archive as a sitemap that uses 301 redirects to the actual threads.