You are still getting confused between what is WordPress (the overall site) and Simple:Press (a forum within the site).

Your step 7 is exactly what WordPress does ‘out of the box’. Not many people really like it – for obvious reasons – and most probably change it but it is normal. We do try and do something about that.

Forum admin > options > global – you can restrict which type of user role can access the ‘admin’ side  of things and set up a redirect for when they try or for when WordPress would normally take them there.

I really would recommend that you spend 5 or 10 minutes looking through all of the panels in the forum admin as many of these questions will be answered without you struggling so much!

I get that these are WordPress users and they need to be managed via WordPress — but I would ‘expect’ not to see those ugly WordPress screens. I would expect the look and feel to remain:  “Simple-Press”.

I can imagine someone clicking ‘Register’,  being re-directed from the forum to an ugly gray WordPress page and they’re wondering, “Where am I?” Then, after they successfully enter their credentials, they ask, “Where the heck did the forums go?”

So, I’ll look through the admin panels and get back to you.

But, so I’m not spinning my wheels, can I achieve what I’m looking for (i.e. keep the registration process within Simple:Press?)?

Thanks!

As we have said, the registration process belongs to WP… we do not register users in the forum… they are registered through wp on the wp site… if you dont want to use the standard wp registration pages, then you need a wp plugin that alters the registration process… there are several of those…

if you just want to keep users out of the wp admin, we do offer functionality for blocking admin access on the forum – options – general settings panel…

Okay. I selected “Block user access to WP admin pages” and specified the forum home page as the redirect. This results in a better experience.

Yes, I get that ‘the registration process belongs to WP’ … my point is the current ‘process’ isn’t very pretty; to the user, it appears to be a disconnected process. Apparently I’m the only one whining about this : ) 

Thanks guys. 
BTW I’m not dinging Simple:Press … I love it. And your support is the best.

no worries… hard for WP to make everything liked by everyone… luckily the plugin system allows just about any customization…

James Mueller said

Yes, I get that ‘the registration process belongs to WP’ … my point is the current ‘process’ isn’t very pretty; to the user, it appears to be a disconnected process. Apparently I’m the only one whining about this : ) 

Not at all – as I said in my first post (#2 above) it is exactly because most users do NOT like it that we tried to do something about it. I suspect many – and probably most ‘serious’ users – however, will use a more rugged registration and login plugin – or even a membership plugin – of which there are quite a few. This also usually allows for more flexibility and customisation.