Join Form

Can the first name and last name be taken out of the join form or would that cause an issue?  It would be part of the edit the profile...

I do not see an issue with that. I would at least keep the following in the Join form though:

Username

Email

DOB

Male/Female

Password

Captcha

Terms and Agreement

you could also gather the first name last name, but not show it to other than the admin. 

Can DOB be made an optional component of the registration "Join Form"?  The site I'm developing does not need it and in my location there are legal privacy issues associated with asking for DOB info.

 i have not checked lately, but one of the factions of dolphin is that you meet a certain age requirement to even join the site, since from the onset and because of other legalities, its not feasible for minors to join a site without parental permissions.

the asking of a DOB may no longer have the same bearing on a dolphin 7.0.9 install, but you could request it as part of the metrics gathered on the users but that data does not have to be revealed other than to the admin in the database. 

 matter of fact, this was off-topic, but i answered it for you just the same. in the future, careful on your thread hijacking. 

I apologize for hi-jacking the thread... I incorrectly assumed my concern would be viewed as within acceptable boundaries of the initial question raised about two key components of the Dolphin Join form.