Are you referring to the 'today's active topics' link you mentioned?

Also, the suggestion mentioned for making unread topics bold...is that something I can do now, with classic? Or will I need to upgrade for that?

Yes that and there was what was called the blue arrow.
Somebody else will need to chime in if there is a way to change the font style for new posts in classic. I just don't remember if there was such a mod for that.

How about the blue arrow? Is that in all versions of classic?

No, it was a link for new replies in the beginning days, Then one version it went away. Then it came back as a mod(hack). That was when Charles Capps was here. You can try searching over at UBBDev.com. It was just so long ago and I have not even used classic for two years. So it is easy to forget.

But there are still people here that use classic so maybe somebody can assist.