Another thing you can do, which makes it a bit easier to live without the New Posts function, is to subscribe to the forums you're most interested in. You can subscribe without getting email notifications. What this can do for you is, if you go to your User CP, you'll see the list of subscribed forums, and you'll see the new posts icon next to each forum that has new activity in it.
To subscribe to a forum, go into the section, click on the Forum Tools dropdown box (on the far right side of the blue bar directly under the page navigation links), and click Subscribe to This Forum. Choose the email, or no email, you want to receive, then Add Subscription. Do this for each and every forum you frequent, then go to your User CP to see them all listed.
User CP