[aranthorn]

I like the hack, but didn't want to replace the post icon with the avatar, so I put the post icon and the status icon on top of each other. Here's my pm_messagelistbit template:

<tr>
	<td class="alt1"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/pm_$pm[statusicon].gif" alt="" border="0" />&nbsp;<img src="$pm[iconpath]" alt="$pm[icontitle]" /></td>
<if condition="THIS_SCRIPT!='usercp'"> <if condition="$sk_avurl"><td class="alt2" width="80"><img src="$sk_avurl[0]" width="60" /></td><else /><td class="alt2" width="60"><img src="images/misc/noavatar.gif" width="60" border="0" /></if></td></if> 
	<td class="alt1Active" id="m$pm[pmid]" width="100%">
		<div>
			<span style="float:$stylevar[right]" class="smallfont">$pm[senddate]</span>
			<a href="private.php?$session[sessionurl]do=showpm&amp;pmid=$pm[pmid]"><if condition="$show['unread']"><strong>$pm[title]</strong><else />$pm[title]</if></a>
		</div>
		<div class="smallfont">
			<span style="float:$stylevar[right]" class="time">$pm[sendtime]</span>
			<if condition="$show['unread']"><strong>$userbit</strong><else />$userbit</if>
		</div>
</td>
	<if condition="$show['pmcheckbox']"><td class="alt2" align="center" style="padding:0px"><input type="checkbox" name="pm[$pmid]" value="$groupid" /></td></if>
</tr>

Thanks for the hack, I like it a lot!