When the new version of TER came out, the threads with new post tend to go up so it becomes the first thing you see.  That helps stimulate more discussion about the thread.  Was that disabled?

The consensus was that while there was some advantage to this as you point out, it also created more problems and invited mischief, to the regret of other threads that never got a chance and got pushed down too quickly.

There's no perfection to this, only balance.

can't win them all.