Nobody blames you for anything Robert. Overall it is all good and I am sure it will get even better.

Honestly, I believe the space board is down in traffic but I am not so sure the others are really down a lot, some maybe but not a lot.

On the old board you never knew who was lurking and even though the color changed when a post was read it took some perusing to see what was new on the various boards. With the current setup you see that nobody is on line and there have been no changes since you checked 4-5 hours ago. This give a perhaps false impression of no activity vs the old place. The fact is I recall many days that there would only be one or two posts per board on some days.

Don't work yourself to death on the interface. It is just a matter of getting used to it and I think most of the regulars can find their way around nicely. The tweaks of eliminating the who's on line and eliminating themes that don't work will get a lot more bang for the buck.

One thing you could try while you are working on the flash format: The home page currently has a link that takes you to the forum list. You might consider replacing that link with links to the individual forums like the home page of .com.

Here's an example: THE CURRENT EVENTS FORUM

This would take you to the list of all posts on Current Events. Not as good as the old tree format I suppose but it does eliminate some confusion and searching by those who have not become as familiar with the place as others.