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Would be helpful.

I concur.

Agreed.

There is not really anywhere nice to slot it in without making the text-heavy ugliness much more text-heavy and ugly. A good graphical mockup from someone and I'll add it, but I'm not sure it could work visually or in terms of usability.

No I mean have it by default when you click on a thread title.
It's much more common for people to want to view the thread since they last posted, or if they haven't posted, the start of the thread, than it would be for them to want to view the first page of the thread regardless.

That would be a definite no as it would be too different to the standard in forum software and would confuse the thousands of new people who visit each month.

If you'd never viewed a thread before it'd bring you to the first page anyway...