Being a new member, I thought I'd chip in:

I actually find the search function quite inadequate. That might of course be me, but I can never seem to find anything. And I'm usually quite good at ferreting out information from the abysses of neverwas (I'm an archivist / records manager professionally).

Apart from that, I have noticed the same thing as the original poster - if you're new (in any forum), you're still pretty much expected to know the entire thread history of the forum, and then shut up about it and carry on. I find xmarks better than many other forums on this point, but have also noticed that xmarks is very intolerant of thread resurrection - unless done by an old and respected member...