Fair enough but for one thing. I don't really care about which messages are unread. I care about which ones are new. The usage pattern is this: I don't have time to read everything. But I make it a point to read all the stuff I'm interested in every time I log in, and ignore the rest. The next time I log in I would like to see highlighted whatever is new, not what I didn't read the previous time. The Sysops' assumption is erroneous that highlighting what is unread is the right thing to do.

Not meaning to insult Sysops everywhere I still say this is a common occurrence. Someone comes up with what is perceived to be a better idea and then implements it. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. When the affected users complain the frequent response is to state what the implementer thought would be good and never actually hear what the user says isn't so good.

We recently had another change that someone apparently thought was good but really isn't. The Your Notifications list has started telling me about my own posts as something someone quoted. Why is that? I don't need to be told about them, I've seen them already! But sometimes I do like to be told about a real quote. (Of course I would normally see that highlighted as a new unread item in that thread anyway. Or at least I would if it wasn't obscured now by so much fluff from unread threads I'm not not interested in.)

There is more than one BHTC (Big High-Tech Company) that does this all the time. One can postulate reasons why, such as lack of corporate or marketing backbone to admit a mistake, too much individual pride, insufficient understanding of users' actual usage patterns, etc. Some companies are quick to make adjustments, to their credit. But the first response is almost always to deny the complainers' complaints as just lack of adaptability. When that happens they are missing the point.

So in this case it is that "they" made seeing which ones are unread easier. The real point is that I (at least) don't care about that, I care about something else.