This is not meant at you chrome307 so please don't take it that way, i think its a good idea to hide forum content (we used to do...right?) to stop leechers/non members just coming in and taking what they want without joining, this would stop the hot-linking of files too by non members....any other good reasons to hide forums content.
defintly mate i am not a fan of people leaching on sites i think they should at least join and say hi first i think that is why alot of forums are locking then now aswell
i hate searching on google, and finding a thread that interests me, but having 2 join that forum just to read the thread, and then finding out it was just a hoax to get people to join.
I havent come across this problem with this site, and have loved it ever since