For what it's worth/in case this helps you convey to tech what I mean, here's sort of a visual analogy... Below is a screenshot of the thread listing in the Hyatt forum, showing the distinction between threads with unread posts and those with no unread posts. Prior to the current change, the forum listings on the UserCP page similarly displayed the forum title (and I think also the stats in the right hand columns) as bolded/not bolded.