I've definitely adjusted now, and love these even more than the big icons. My only idea is to make the icons for new/no new posts from the same section of the image as the old ones. Maybe some continuity would help us all with recognition. I personally like the contrasting colours when zipping through the page with a few spins of the scrollwheel - they pop out more than the same image with text.

But it's still really good this way...

BTW, yes...I'm an index pager. Never really liked the Active Topics page...more fun to see it from the actual forum page.