Well for starters, putting this thread directly into 'sticky' mode and not telling us about it is hardly the way to get it noticed, is it now.

Putting posts in sticky mode is how we notify the forum. There is nothing new about that, it's the way things have always been done here, and at most every other forum on the internet. It's your responsibility to read the stickies when they are posted. That's why they exist at the top of the forum, to be read first. Most of the posts in this thread are not about you.