i figured that is it. i think a lot of web 1.0 communities such as this have been consolidated into large, web 2.0 aggregators like social media sites, reddit, etc. it's actually kind of unfortunate because with that aggregation has meant a lot of things have been lost - such as more individualised communities, greater site community feel, etc. also vB offers a better browsing experience than the fairly primitive board system sites like reddit use. its a case of 'progress' not necessarily leading to better things, and actually accompanying a loss of features