Well this is ambitious.
It is a suggestion ... it is difficult and will likely be met with ridicule, but here goes.
When you are on the forums you might leave a tab open on your browser. I do this whilst I have other tabs open and I do other things. It would be nice if like Facebook, whenever someone replies to a post or PMs me, I get a little silent notification to tell me something has happened. What I don't like is having to click on the browser, refresh the window, see no one cares about my thoughts and wait another hour or so before I push it again.
There are the little circle icons that appear, but you can also get push notifications and they could be easier to implement, and an option in your TFES settings. Just a little message that says
TFES Notification {x}
You have a Private Message from Parsifal
or
TFES Notification
"Parsifal replied to 'Coriolis is bunk' {x}
"Baby Thork doesn't know what he is talkin ..."
I feel this would go someway towards alleviating the crushing disappointment that a refresh brings when no one replies, and also would allow conversations to flow quicker. If I'm only checking once an hour and you replied after 5 mins, the chances are you got bored and left with no reply before I even noticed I had a reply.