I've been doing some tweaking of the site design and one thing I've added that should be very useful is a "Universal Profile Window" which is now on the top right on every page of the site.

You can search for topics here and it has a very handy feature that will show you the "New Forum Topics Since your Last Visit"... which is a great way to keep abreast of all the new topics on the site.

I hope you find it useful.