the new layout has advantages like the placement of the forum rules at the top.
but one thing the old layout did much better was the distinction between threads, which got permanently stuck at the top by moderators because they are important and normal threads.
the new layout does not make any distinction between those two kinds of threads (besides the last post time). can the admin/zep put all the stuck threads into another subsection (forum, topics, announcements) labeled "sticky treds"/"important threads"?
this would help the overview a lot.