How many posts are there per day? A good rule of thumb is not more than one forum per 5 posts per day. We're WAY over that. This results in most of the forums getting one post a MONTH, if that, and lots of offtopic chat in the few at the top. Go with the flow, cut down and merge most of them together.
I just click on the New Posts and get to the action right away without festering on Post per Forum. You may have a point, but I think we'd cut down to 2-4 sub-forums by your metric. It isn't broke, try New Posts.
This site is precise. The details make all the difference in the world. However you may be right. There may be too many subforums. It could be tightened up a little. Also, as ww stated, there are user tools here that can be utilized. Every forum goes through cycles. The oil market, fracking, and geopolitical concerns cause an ebb and flow to the popularity of SUVs, CUVs, and Chevy Sparks.
I think the site would be better off with fewer subforums. Precision would help if site traffic were truly massive but we're not nearly big enough to support what we have. Here's one possible consolidated structure that I think would work: -Start Your Journey Here -Clean Driving & Riding -Clean Vehicles -Clean Tech & Modifications -Clean Living (Efficiency/Environmental considerations beyond transportation) -CleanMPG Community (consists of three subforums below) ---Classifieds ---Members Only ---Off Topic -CleanMPG Information (composed of essential subforums) ---[Rewiews, News, etc. stay intact since they drive the front page] I think that would take care of our top-level needs while cutting forum count by nearly a factor of 10.
I agree with worthywads. I just use the Today's Posts / New Posts links and everything is right there.