Thanks for the feedback.
Some users took a while to get used to the new platform, it has it’s quirks, but as far as I can tell most find it an improvement over the old one. @Nick and @gunnar spent a long time evaluating potential forum software, and the new software (https://www.discourse.org/) was the best in terms of migrating the old site (1.8 Mio. posts, going back to the original mailing list of the early '90s). The software was also available for members to try and provide feedback on, but few actually looked at the trial site.
There is a user guide category with help information: #user-guides-and-how-tos, and you can also run an automated tutorial, see: Headsup: New online tutorial facility
The search is one of the features which is much better than the old site. Could you send me a screen shot of the search you tried on XJ40? If search is in fact ignoring filters then I will report that to the developers and they will provide a fix in short order. (my bug reports and suggestions for adding functionality to the search have been very quickly addressed in the 9 months or so that I’ve been providing feedback.)
There was some work on implementing user display themes back in the spring, but they ran into some issues and are working on it. A high contrast theme was one of the aims there, and once available we will implement that.
The 15 character limit does seem to be a thorn for some users. I think it’s a decent value, if we shorten it much more then titles will become cryptic, meaning that users would have to open the thread to figure out what it is about. Thread titles need to be unique, but also informative. Imagine trying to reassemble a restoration where all the storage bags or boxes have been marked “Bits, 1a”, “Bits, 2a”, “more Bits”, “Important Bits” - you’d spend most of your time opening and examining the content of your storage, rather than bolting bits onto the shell.