yep, i need to investigate further to find out what exactly is causing us the probs we are facing lately. Search function is definately an issue (as searching thru 1 500 000 posts by 7 or 8 users at the same time averagely is quite heavy ROFL) but the watched topics is also recieveing my attention at the mo as i think this hack feature could well cause probs too... so no worry, they'll be both back, but I need first to test them very very deeply

Just some figures for you all : our server receives 57 MySQL requests per second AVERAGE (!!!), and at least 4 of those requests are called "heavy ones" (that means they are opening each time 207878 lines of code and browsing thru tables that are at least 200 Megs each.)
For those that don't understand very well all this stuff, try opening 4 text files at the same time that are 200 megs each one during 10 seconds on your home PC, and you'll understand how powerful our hardware is