Please remember, you don't need photobucket or flickr etc.... you can just post your pictures straight into your posts. However the hosting sites make sense if you're going to post to other forums, saves you uploading to loads of different forums.
I did build a seperate gallery system a few years back when I was running the old P6ROC site, but didn't see the need in here, people seem to like to post the pics and add a bit of story, as well as other commenting back on the photos.