Read/Unread Post Icons. Do people even look at them?

[skylab]

I want to cut down on unnecessary images and text on my site. Do people really look at the unread/read/posted/not posted icons next to the threads? Do people really care if its "hot"? Typically if its unread then the thread topic title would be bold anyway so are the icons nessessary? Seems like a waste of space and image load time. Thoughts?

[Lynne]

I look to see if I've posted in a thread before. I could care less if it's 'hot' or not though.

[Princeton]

removing any feature on a site may backfire - if this is an active community I suggest asking/polling your members first before removing

FYI: some of the icons point to different URLs; some behave as a mechanism for ajax functions