Will:1) reduce redundant search results, listing the original post only (instead of also listing replies to threads)
Not
sure if I like this.. Sometimes I've made a post in the middle of the
thread and i'm trying to find it because the thread title was poorly
written.. I knew what I wrote, but can't find the thread and I use
the search to find it.. If the original post is the only one that
shows in the search results, wouldn't I then be unable to find my
post? As long as I can still find my post, I'm cool with it..
Will:
2) display amount of replies for each thread
Fine by me
Will:
3) display amount of views for each thread
Fine..
Will: 4) display the forum category where each thread is posted
Fine I guess
Will: 5) (your suggestion here)
Much more important than
2, 3, and 4, I'd think it'd be nice for those who create a new thread
with a given title name.. To have it automatically search for threads
with that title name and display the results to the user right before
they create a new thread.. Have it so the search ONLY happens when you
create a new thread (make it an extra step or something during thread
creation or something).. This will significantly reduce the number of
duplicate threads out there and I think that's probably my #1 problem..
Repeating the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again
to each new person who keeps asking about RAID or whatever.. The forum
rules may say to do a search before posting, but like nobody actually
does it.. It'd be nice if an auto-search was done on the thread title,
everytime somebody went to write a new thread..
We've got
like at least 20 threads now on the topic of RAID and they're pretty
much all just the same information over and over (except the one or two
that Root has been working on which have really taken the best
information from all threads and shoved it into one or two threads)..
If
you're curious to see what the search would look / feel like.. Try
submitting a story to digg.com and you'll see what I mean by.. It
automatically does a search for the story to make sure people aren't
posting the same news article multiple times. Pretty cool feature I
think..
Telling somebody to "use the search" and then just
ignoring the thread is a little bit rude, so I try to avoid it and more
than not, I end up just repeating the same info I had in another half
dozen threads. We've got like 4 seperate threads on Halo 3 going on at the same time now. 
Edit: Perhaps only show threads that were active in the last 30 days by a similar title or something when attempting to post a new thread to prevent people from digging up really old threads..