I think one of the main benefits to the software being purchased by Infopop is that they have a staff member or 2 (or 3) that do this type of work. The usability (gui) of threads should gradually improve, still retaining its wwwthreads style.
There are some things we'll be working on in the meantime. I think the "quick reply" helps a lot in this. Removing things from view that most do not use and only confuses the newbies are another. Making "post new topic" and "reply" buttons/text a little more prominent another. Some wording changes, etc. etc.
