The least confusing for me is flat forum and collapsed. Where the whole thread is just one click away. Yeah you have to open most threads to see who has posted but with it jumping to the first unread post it is pretty quick. Only thing is it can be hard to tell who a post is to in the middle of a thread.
I suppose if we were all good about putting the name of who we are directing our post to in a long thread it would make it easier in collapsed form.
Second choice would be threaded and collapsed.
If you click "In reply to" it will jump to that post. Collapsed view for the main forum page works best for me. I'm actually warming up to the flat mode myself for viewing threads. Although the threaded view is good when things get long and stringy.
I had noticed that but figured since it was Lee I wouldn't get that technical.
You better stick with the threaded view, long and stringy seems to be the theme around here. I still can't figure out why more people haven't found the super secret smiley face button.