The 'view the 10 most recent posts ...' is hard-coded into YaBB, so there's nothing that I can do to change it I'm afraid.
However, there are several other options available to members. As Don has already mentioned, the 'Search' facility is pretty flexible and thorough - you can even select a member (or members) that you're interested in seeing the posts of. Also, there has been an enhancement to the 'auto notification' of 'watched topics' - this is in the form of an automatic pop-up and notification when you next login to the forum. This is similar to the e-mail notification option but hopefully a lot easier to use. This has to be enabled in your profile. Simply go to 'User CP > Profile > Options' and tick the box marked 'Notification Popup on Board Index: If you have "new" board or post notifications, you will see a Popup alert when you visit the Board Index.'
There's also the 'Favourites' option - where you can bookmark any given thread that you're particularly interested in for easy viewing when you return.
Lastly, the discussion forum now has a RSS feed which features the last
25 posts made, is well constructed and groups posts in accordance to thread, topic etc. Not only can this be easily viewed at any time by simply clicking on
or similar button in your browser, as it's a RSS feed, you can subscribe to it and have the post information automatically sent to you whether your not you're browsing the S.A. forum.
I hope this clarifies.
Enjoy.
D