I've been attempting to communicate with Sol in email about this topic. I'm not sure what, if anything, will come of it, but he doesn't appear to be keen (at all) on going back to a static header styled forum despite the need/desire. I did suggest that perhaps he could consider giving us a choice in group creation for having that type of forum. Then at least group communication wouldn't have to suffer the needle in a haystack scenario.
I'd love to give every group the ability to have that type of forum but it's technically not doable within the constraints of this site or most other sites. Perhaps if I had the resources of Facebook this would be possible but even their site does not do this.