I am not techie by any stretch of the imagination, but I do belong to a larger BB community (cruisecritic.com #71) than FlyerTalk (#110) where people frequently have three or four images attached to every post, and that board moves very, very fast and appears to have very few problems. This, however, would be an issue on which FlyerTalk and IB would have to advise. I agree that if a feature affects performance, then that must be seriously weighed against its perceived value. If it costs more than they are willing to spend, then that is the end of the discussion.

I apologize if I was unclear, birdstrike. What I meant is that I would very much like having identification photo avatars of the poster, but am not particularly fond of non-photo avatars in general. I also recognize, however, that I am much older than most FlyerTalkers and the young people I know (some here) seem to enjoy them. Whether we like to admit it or not, the population of FT will continue to become younger and younger than we are today, and we need to think of their needs and desires as well as our own.