In answer to your second, it DOES allow you to define who gets access to what admin screens. But it at least presents you with the OPTION, in all those cases. SPF is the first plugin I’ve run across that AAM doesn’t even see is installed.
Starting to think that Advanced Access Manager is creating more headaches that it solves. Unless there’s a workaround that will get me into the SPF admin side, I’m going to try and find something to replace AAM.
Ugh. Thanks for walking me through this.
I just downloaded it to see what’s up… but may not have a lot of time tonight…
we do add our admin panels using the standard wp api for that… but we dont create new wp roles for our stuff – just capabilities…
I’m gonna get rid of Advanced Access Manager. My current panic is about what kind of mess it’ll leave behind once I blow it out.
Even once all this is through, I don’t know that it will solve the problem of the five unformatted forums showing. Will let you know what I track down.
Thanks for the help so far!
short lived testing… lol… it just crashes under wp 3.5 that I am using which is currently in RC 2 with release planned for December 5… so wont be testing it… 
well, when its gone, and you get access to the sp admin panels, go to forum – integration – page and permalink… and try setting the display within loop and unset the allow multiple display… may try diff combinations… and may try the strict wp api option too..
Oh this is a GEM. Got rid of Advanced Access Manager, and magically all the admin menus come back, and best of all, the five unformatted forum iterations are gone as well.
I feel like I should buy an ad on your site that says “Avoid Advanced Access Manager like the plague.” (Although hopefully Google does its job and makes this thread readily available to anyone who was experiencing my little nightmare.)
Terrific stuff – thanks again.
lol… didnt expect it to fix the front end! 
but glad it did! 
did you see my last post? about it crashing under wp 3.5? was last post on previous page so easy to miss…