[ataraxia]

Thanks. I sorta figured that might be the case...

Can anyone suggest a relatively simple hack for this?

Is it something the vB team might want to consider as a "feature request"? ;-)

The ability to make posts "sticky" would provide a means for Admins/Moderators to post "welcome" messages, "thread rules', "thread topic statement" or other "required" information at the thread level that would be non-optionally seen by any visitor to that thread regardless of the post-order mode they have selected.

This is quite different from "announcements" which are only visible at the forum level and viewing is optional to users. (Announcements are often missed entirely by regular users who tend to click on the "new posts" link and, therefore, only see a thread listing. Besides, people tend to ignore or miss the announcements generally.)