You may already know this, of course...
I think that's the point. Someone new to the forum may want to go directly to the products page, find it difficult, and end up moving to a different site. One key to developing an ecommerce website is making it extremely easy to buy there. Making a potential customer work for it defeats the purpose.
Even for us old timers, it has been shown that more people buy when it is one click away than when it is two clicks away. More so when you have to remember how to get there. I know when I see people discussing a Bottlehead product here that slightly piques my interest, I like to go to the products to see the price and description of the item. If it's a hassle getting there and returning to the same post, I don't.
In that way the old site was more conducive to purchasing.
In fact, since I have a busy day, the only page I look at now is "Show unread posts since last visit". I look at a post, hit SUPSLV, hit another post, and so on until there is nothing left in that list. I guess those who are retired have more time to move around and remember where they were.
