[eluser]Phil Sturgeon[/eluser]
The issue with parser is that its not really much of a templating engine, just a way to echo variables with neater syntax that short tags.
I plan to keep the core view files using pure PHP for the speed, but I feel that end-users and theme designers will see a benefit to using a templating engine. For example, with the Parser, if you wish to modify a variable it is impossible. Meaning if you wish to output a date in a different format to the one used by PyroCMS, you are screwed.
Smarty's modifiers are powerful as hell and allows presentation logic in the view files while sticking to the MVC mantra.
I am toying with the idea of setting up a modifiers-like system for CodeIgniter which integrates (or just extends) the CI Parser.
