Well, like all forum software, it has it's good features and different features.
One thing I really liked about the old software was when you went to a topic, it took you to the last page. Where you could easily go back to the 'archived' by date pages at the top to catch up, and just press the back button to get back to where you were. With this type with the page numbers under the topic, if you walk through them then you can't just click the back button.
As with most things in life, nothing (or anyone for that matter) is all good or all bad, just shades of gray.