Yes, I can see people could have varying personal approaches to this, maybe just the way each person's brain works.
I will admit that there is an entire 'other' approach, that is to just go to Forums and see which ones are in bold print. Go through them one by one.
The downside is, that includes "any new unread" posts, even if they would not qualify for the red notification as per one's settings, but at least I can eyeball through them and any titles I recognize, I know I still need to click on them.
I just think it would be more powerful for the red notification # to keep up with all that for me - but perhaps I am asking a bit too much in the first place.
Either way it's not a true complaint, I think AWF is pretty nifty just as it is