I think calculating the new posts for each member of Renderosity as they look on the forums does take more effort from the server than have a total number of messages and threads which is the same for everyone who looks at the site. Having a daily number of new posts would be more useful to me then the number of threads and messages. But that's just me. I don't need any count. I do find myself checking the forums less often now that I don't have a sense of new messages being posted. I guess that helps reduce the load on the server right there.