I love the current platform. Less is more.
Here's what I see can use a little fix.
Often times, side chatter opens up in a given topic which is clearly off topic. There should be a way to somehow indent those side conversations, so that it doesnt detract from the flow of the forum. Perhaps by indenting , or having a different background.
Take for instance this thread.
Forum Game: Where have you been that none of the rest of us have?There is a nice conversation going back and forth discussing places where people have/have not been to. Then somebody chime in about descriptive usernames. then I reply, and we can go off on a whole discussion about passwords. Dont get me wrong, i have no problem with that, but i think that if these side conversations would be set-off in a different way, it would make DDF more readable. I imagine that this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish even with the current format.