Yes, it makes me happier.
See a preview option was added when editing forum posts... excellent! 
(and about time)
Two (minor) issues though:
- Inter-paragraph spacing was 1 empty line in the edit-box, none in the preview (all lines one block of text), but with empty line between paragraphs again in the posted message.
- Hyperlink is near-invisible dark blue on light blue in the preview, but well readable yellow in the posted message.
In other words: WYPINWYG (What You Preview Is Not What You Get). 
Of course I haven't got a clue how this site is built, but ideally (some of) the same code that produces the comment part in forum pages, should be used to produce a preview. Then there's automatically a 1:1 match between previews and posted messages.
Changing the date/time only doesn't solve that as well as I'd like. There is still a feature request to keep an individual history of all read content so you can easily see what's new for you. However that is a big feature and will be a long way in coming.
No need to keep per-user data: like others said, just a much longer history of what forum threads had new posts, would do it. Something like a "new posts" or "active topics" button on the forum main page, with results going back a few days. Shouldn't be too hard with a database-backed site... 
Front page is much harder, as it's entirely custom and would need quite a lot of work. Not to mention the limited space in the layout we have for that.
So... maybe someday, but not just now
OK, then: thanks for the trouble, but I never look at the forums other than via the front page... :S Well, at least I can now see with one click what really is new, so it's much better than nothing 
