"in the interests of performance" leads me to wonder about the definition of performace. What is trumping here is speed of the system, and that is a part of performance. But it seems to me that performance is about total usefulness to the user, which is more than speed, and the current set up makes it harder to use the site, makes the site less valuable, will over time deter users not attract them.

Without search, I and I expect others will just post a new topic. Duplicative. Uses system resources unnecessarily. Uses poster resources unnecessarily. Might inhibit the genoristy of information sharing.

Without New Posts, I am not current about the overview unless I select I spend at least 30 minutes clicking through topics. Being current was a huge benefit to me from this site. This for me is a way bigger loss.

Would you want to consider a hierarchy of users (I don't really like this idea), where one would have to have been registered for a certain length of time to use New Posts?

Sylvia, sad and lonely