I made a script that does this and have installed it on
my own site and on
openwebdesign.org. It's not free though. PM me if you're interested.
It displays the threads with the latest posts. Number of threads it displays as well as colors and format can all be customized.
If you have vbSEO installed, I also have an vbSEO version that will make the links vbSEO friendly. You can see what I mean by checking out my site and looking at the links for the threads.