Well, let’s ask the question directly of the [del]gods[/del] mods:
Mods, why are zombie threads not marked in some conspicuous way so it is immediately apparent to us-all? Is it because of lack of interest on the part of the mods? Too much trouble to implement? Not an existing capability of vBulletin? Lack of agreed-upon definition of a zombie? The mods themselves are zombies?
I can appreciate zombies as much as any other thread. After all, if the topic is interesting to me and I haven’t seen it before, then it’s of interest to me to read it, zombie-nature notwithstanding. But I do like to know, and have it blatantly called to my attention, that the thread is old, and may contain dated material, and I like to scroll down to recent posts to see why it was re-enlivened. And I agree that it’s a PITA that I should have to train myself to look at the start date (especially since I often jump directly to the last page of a thread).
I would like the zombie notification to be up front, on the thread-list page, like with an icon or a different color or something. Be nice also if the starting date of the thread was there too. How thoroughly configurable is vBulletin?