Jazz,
Here's my $.02...
If there are too many posts, don't read them all. On other message boards, they may have hundreds of new posts each day. The readers of the board sort through the posts by subject and read the interesting ones. Yes, that may take away from the homey feeling of the board somewhat, and you might miss out on a clever "in" joke. What can be done?
After having been away for 5 days, I'm home for 2 days before I leave again to go to my parents' home for Christmas. When I got back from my last voyage I found nearly 200 posts in Q&A alone. There's no way I have time right now to sort through all that. I read the subjects of the threads, and if there was one of particular interest, I read it.
I agree that dragging out old dead threads can be frustrating, but what if someone comes along who has something really interesting to say on the topic. Should we fuss at them because they bring up something that we (or someone at some time past) already talked about? Should we expect them not to express themselves because we don't want to have to reread some old posts? They might have something really interesting to say! I don't think we can just tell people not to post in a thread because it's been a while since anyone has looked at it. If you don't want to rehash the topic, don't read it.
