i visit another forum where when you left click on a person's name (say where it says who submitted a post) it gives you options such as pm and what not, i enjoy the feature as it's easy to read and would clear alot of clutter at the bottom of posts. it also gives you a brief paragraph of the text of a thread when you mouse over the topic. This is a quick way to find out if what is in the thread is interesting, also it seems it could relieve your server of undue traffic (i'm not sure about that but it sounds logical)
sao95
p.s. here's a link to that forum in case you want to see ithttp://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=101