LOL collector, it’s funny you should mention that site as an example (did you mean the SITE, or the FORUM?) – it’s not a great site, but the font sizes are OK as you say – and it DOES have an 800×600 disclaimer LOL. Then again it’s a much older site by now, a ‘look-only’ site, and a fixed-size site. I never designed it… I just tried to pretty up the existing design. These days, if you want to do a fixed site, you do it in flash so that all of the content sizes to fit the resolution.
You’re right in the points you mention as far as something such as a forum goes. We’ll see if we can change the width of these tables.