So what was wrong with showing all messages in all forums rather than just a week's worth?

In addition to the reasons Dionysus cited, it also improved the speed of the BBS. Less data to chew on for each user session, less text to send, fewer icons to send, smaller tables to display when listing the topics.

That last one alone was probably worth it to Netscape users. Netscape is awfully slow at drawing big tables. I don't know if 6 got any faster, but 4.7 was terrible.

___________
Tony Fabris