pleonastic - um, that's only kinda sorta true. with unstructured data, then it's really important and without it, the results are ordered meaninglessly. but this is instead quite highly structured data. it has a subject, an author, and a date just for starters. not leveraging those is idiotic. the fact that the search does not order by date, does not allow searching by author, and returns results by reply and not by thread without an option to do so, along with several other meaningful and useful functionalities makes me think this isn't phpBB, which i think is what everyone is assuming this is. like right now, i can't see the thread to double check on your name (edited to correct for your name, sorry). i think the forum developers (who ever they are) took the style of phpBB without thinking about the function. i don't care when or how frequently you post unless i can PM you where I can see your posting history. or go to look at your web site, gallery, or store. so that's just noise at best and a source of bias at worst instead of pertinent information. i cannot state how much i loathe these new forums, and i've watched and applauded the growth of phpBB use. and if they don't switch off the override of my personal preferences... well, i'm just not going to come here much. not because i'm going to purposefully avoid this place as retribution, but because my nice, comfortable settings have been replaced with what i see as horrendous design choices that make my experience so unpleasant i now have to force myself to stay by telling myself i don't want to miss any pertinent information. i had a nice black background, and this change has been equivalent to having my nice, comfortable dimly lit bar which i frequented daily turn into an computer lab with fluorescent lighting. for me, this forum now literally induces migraines, and i can only stand it for a few minutes at a time. whereas previously, i would keep a window open to this site all day and check back every now and then. and i won't even get into the usability problems that having a right-handed nav causes. did they think every other designer on the web was just an idiot? oh, and no matter what, everything shows up with a yellow star. in a forum with as much activity as this, didn't they realize that there would be yellow stars everywhere, even if that feature worked properly? it looks hideous and stupid. once an indicator is on everything, it doesn't actually indicate anything, and should be at least made less consipicuous. sort of like the choice to bold every forum post title in a list of titles. it's about as useful as typing a message in all caps. sorry for all the negativity, but i'm really hating these changes. ok, better go before the headache actually takes root instead of just extends tendrils.