The link above may already do what vbulletin is doing now: sorting threads within a forum by the last post date. The mod description seems to describe sorting the forums, then it talks about sorting the threads within the forums. I'm not sure what it sorts.

Of course, if you do sort the forums by thread post date, invariably you'll want to keep some forums as sticky. I didn't see anything there either in both the manual (I downloaded a copy) and the vbulletin forum.

As far as allowing the public to see the New Posts link, you may want to compare the Usergroup permissions for Registered Users and Unregistered Users/Guests. I didn't see anything in the manual that popped out at me, but you may notice something by comparing the two yourself.

You may also just want to post a message on the vbulletin board. You can provide specific info such as what version you're using and other specifics and be able to correspond with mod developers. And if that functionality doesn't exist and there are no mods, you can add it to their Suggestions box. I'm sure that getting the rest of the forum components up and running is a higher priority than this. Hopefully, at some point this can be addressed.

Otp