This forum is only one – albeit extremely important – part of the site as a whole. Yes, we want using it to be as simple and pleasurable an experience as possible, but at any given time there are likely to be a whole list of demands on our (centralised) web development team and I and the other website editors have to prioritise what gets done when.
A perfect system? No, and it probably never will be, but the time Andrew, myself and Clare spend responding to questions and complaints online and listening to what users want is, I hope, indicative of how much importance we attach to the website. We will endeavour to make improvements when we can.