From Windy's, "where's the custom post", it seems evident that some people would prefer less separate forums in the windsurfing section.
I think the GPS/speed forum serves a good function, but I'm not sure about the others.
May be if anybody with a preference one way or the other expresses their views and reasons here, Laurie may change things back.
No fussed.
One advantage is the annoying posters(myself included) dont ruin threads as it to hard to keep track of them all
I don't care. I only use the "Active Topics", so no matter where you hide something, I see it all!
It means the forum name acts sort of like a topic heading... if someone posts something in the windsurfing Qld forum then I know it's got nothing to do with me so I won't click on it. Except if I'm bored. Or want to stir Gestalt up.
This also means you get to see total dummy spits like this one:
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=39165
Old people dont like change, no matter how much better it is.
I think there is a saying which goes something like... you cant teach an old dog new tricks?
"Active Topics" 
Der, I never noticed it before Nebs
, that'll do the trick for me too mate 
Some separation is good.. too much kills a forum. Banter and cross-pollination of ideas is fundamental to a healthy and vibrant forum environment.
I've suggested a slightly different approach previously - along the lines of using the "category" field to provide the separation (if you want to use it). Setting the Category needs to be compulsory on a new post.
Fundamentally, all the windsurfing posts would be in the windsurfing forum. At the same level. Sub-forums are approximated by choosing the "category" you want to look at. With a little bit of imagination, Laurie could even hook that into the menu, so it would even look and work the same for the people who like to use it that way.
That keeps Greenroom happy (Ah.. modern democracy - it's always the minorities that hold sway) because he can still look at the categorised posts [he can even still call them sub-forums if he likes
], it keeps the rest of us happy because we can regain that "big fuzzy family feeling", and best yet, it doesn't upset the "Active Topics" functionality.
The important thing is that it needs to be easy to use, and easy to see that things are alive on the forum. As a new visitor, you're not going to understand about all the sub-forums, and as firie just demonstrated, the 'Active Topics' thing isn't intuitive to find/use.
Bring back Bubs!
yes, go back all into one general forum....but make it obligotary to have a forum topic...... and if one topic gets so busy it takes up a whole page every day then give it its own page . e.g. gps
other ideas
bring back the old buy n sell, maybe iontroduce a pay per ad system - only if yer gear sells like ebay.
always thought a gear SWAP forum would be fun/interesting....if you've got a surplus of unused gear, u would get to try heaps of different gear out,without having to fork out the $$$
online windurf chat room a la msn, been suggesting this one for a while, always get mixed views on it though.
Yes, but keep GPS separate. This is active enough on its own. The idea of forcing people to have list a sub-category is a good.
I know this is a bit off topic but I do think the buy and sell needs reform. I think for transparency all trade advertisments should be clearly marked - allowing trade to list stock for free is also extremely generous of Seebreeze. There is also a lot of kit which has been listed for ages because it is not realistically priced. After 3 months your ad should expire - or you should be forced to change the price!
change makes my pants fall down.
...er so, change it back to how it was before it was unchanged.......I mean changed.......(pre change)... So thats a no to change, except for the change back.................yes. 
Yes for unification, and Yes for compulsory categories (and for making the 'forums' links in the menu bar use the category filter instead)
Yes, integrate them back into one main forum (with GPS seperate)
NSW forum hardly ever gets posts
Use 555's approach to seperate threads into sub-topics/forum
When i first started using seabreeze the forums were:
- General
- buy and sell
- gear reviews
That was the best i thought. Maybe the GPS Speed forum one is alright. But now i spend all my time on SA forum and dont see as much what is going on around AUS.
Way to many at the moment i reckon.
Bubs
Yes, reduce the forums
General
gear reviews
GPS Speed
using categories - Category selection needs to be enabled within the active topics page.
QLD has closed it's WQ forum and now uses the Seabreeze one, so I am all for keeping that and I think we will see it used a lot more once the summer race/comp season starts for event notification, which I doubt many people outside QLD would be interested in.
Some people aren't quite getting it apparently.. you can still have a QLD category.. It will (for those who want to use it that way) still be a separate "forum", only in a category.
Even the GPS guys can have their own category. I can't see any benefit in only going half way. That's just making things difficult for Laurie and his team of coders to implement.
