One thing I miss

[Origisaurus]

2, actually, the lol and rotf emoticons.

And what does "toggle view" do?  (rightmost button)

[The Gorn]

I can install a new smiley pack. I'll look into that. The ones we get here are admittedly lame.

The small gray buttons that look like minus signs on the right collapse that respective section visually.

The one that controls all of the forums that is labeled "Unread posts" will toggle an "unread only" state so you only see forums that have new messages. This state persists across browser sessions, so you can visit later and the only-new-posts-are-visible state will be in effect.