i know what you are referring to and i agree but i use 2 ways and 1 is to scroll to the bottom and on the right it shows the topics with most recent posts and the 2nd way is on the left side of near the bottom you can select how many posts to see

Well, this post goes to show that you never really know what others are seeing (or not seeing).  One of the reasons I particularly like the 3A page is that it is so easy to see where there are new posts.  There is a gray dot (bullseye) right to the left of the section topics.  If you are logged in, this dot will be blue when there is new activity in that section.  Then if you go to that section or use the "drop down" arrow, you will see a blue "new" box next to each thread that has new posts that you haven't read.  I love this feature.  Maybe you aren't seeing it if you aren't logged in???  Maybe it only works on certain browsers???