First off, thank you for all of your suggestions.
This is my response as a member, not as part of the site staff. Ultimately, the type of adjustments some of you have requested are up to the site owner.
However; this is my point of view.
This site isn't "slow" because of the number of forums and sub-forums, but is a little slow because its only a little over a year old and members is still around 350. It isn't worth consolidating forum threads into unorganized general forums simply to make it appear that the forum is busier.
Instead, I encourage everybody to make sure that all of your reefer buddies and fellow local reefers are aware of and engaging this site. I believe that the owner intends to continue to award those people with the most referrals.
Looking at this site honestly though, its a very specialized forum and geared to a limited area. It will never have the traffic some of the non-regional specific sites do.
Just so members are aware of the functionality of the site.
When you first log-in, under your avatar on the right side of the screen on the main www.chicagoreefs.com page, you will see "New Posts" and a number. This represents the number of posts since your lost visit. By clicking on that number, it will bring up threads which have new information.
This may help some of you to quickly located new posts.
I challenge all of our members to make an effort to make this the premier regional reefer discussion forum. Because this site is focused to, and explicitly for regional reefers, I believe that it offers the most potential.
Now its just a matter of you convincing your fellow online reefer buddies. Lets all make this the biggest and best site it can be.