I doubt PB will eventually tolerate the couple of browser workarounds. Plus, only those who are aware of the workaround, and who then isntall it will be able to see the pics. Most new visitors will not be aware of it and simply give up on the gutted threads.
If you have photos on this forum, linked to Photobucket, I'd back up all accessible images on your local computer if you haven't already. Then gradually relocate them either on an alternate provider or via the forum photo storage And re-link into your threads.
Then nice thing about downloading them as backup is that they will retain their names exactly as already linked -- if you re=host them elsewhere, generally all that is necessary then is to edit the part of the IMG tag in your posts that has the Photobucket server name. You just substitute the new server name. The rest of the tag stays the same.