[Overgrow]

Nope, a join will do it. I've got it re-written..

old way: mysql things 1.10 seconds
new way: mysql things 0.09 seconds

Only problem is it joins the post table again which won't work if you have dotqueries turned on. It will take a little more re-writing to get it to work with dotqueries.

PHP Code:

// HACK POST PREVIEW
if($bbuserinfo['usergroupid']==6 and $showposts!="off") {
    $previewselect="post.pagetext as pagetext,";
    $previewjoin="LEFT JOIN post ON (thread.firstpostid = post.postid)";
}
// END PREVIEW

$threads=$DB_site->query("
SELECT $dotuserid $votequery $previewselect ".iif($foruminfo[allowicons],
'icon.title as icontitle,icon.iconpath,','')."
    thread.threadid,thread.title,lastpost, forumid,pollid,open,replycount,postusername,postuserid,
    lastposter,thread.dateline,views,thread.iconid,
notes,thread.visible,sticky,votetotal,attach
    FROM thread
    ".iif($foruminfo[allowicons],'LEFT JOIN icon ON (icon.iconid = thread.iconid)','')."
    $dotjoin $previewjoin
    WHERE $threadids
    ORDER BY sticky DESC, $sortfield $sqlsortorder
    "); 


Then reference thread[pagetext] down below instead of running the query each time. Works like a charm without the extra db overhead, but like I said, will take a little tweaking to get it to go with dotqueries.