Most of these types of modifications require significant amounts of work.  I would have to go through and completely overhaul the system templates to do these sort of thing (remove all whitespaces, modify the stylesheet system, etc).  I just can't see the possible small benefit as being worth the massive effort it would take.  These sorts of things would also create quite a problem when attempting to update any of the forum software here as I would basically have to make the changes all over again every time.

I'm curious about how much web design is original to this site. I've been checking out the Invision software (specifically because of this site) and to be honest, I see very little more here than what comes out of their box. It sounds like most of the optimizations are on the back end (mod_gzip, Zend) instead of in the actual site design.

Speaking of, where can I go to learn more about this mod_gzip thing that seems to make all of the dial-up users so happy? (I'm about to Google "Zend", too.) I think I'm about to start some serious development on a community site and want to have a solid basis first.

If there really is a need for more speed Dibrom should think about integrating a minimal skin for those on slow connections.

HA is typically very speedy, however in the last three weeks I've noticed a drastic slow down, such as some pages taking 60 to 90 seconds to load -- this I've noticed at various hours such as after 12AM (U.S. CST) and after 6AM (U.S. CST).

I realize the problem could be with my ISP since I do have a slow 56k connection.