get rid of all of the icons that say a topic is new if it's over 2 days old or some other arbitrary way.

Sorry guys about the technical problems. We had a real bad problem with spammers for a while.Alll those commercial prescription  drug peddlers.  We got that cleaned up , but it looks like it was done at a cost. Other unforseen problems developed in the process of blocking the spammers.  
 
Hopefully those problems are resolved now. Apologies to Pistol and others who experienced problems. Nothing was intentional. Technology brings out the same old vices , only in a new form. We are trying to keep this site up and running. Please bear with us.There are some really clever people out there.  

ok