[Brad]

One way or anthor is not always right. Each situation requires testing to find the best methods of getting the page to load quicker.

As filburt said all queries do is retrive, store, and modify information in your database. Having many queries per page can be bad as you are putting strain on the database.

Ever open multiple large files on your home pc only to have it slow down while the HDD is begin read? Same thing here.

163 is a very high number, so is 43, you'll want to take a look at your forum and figure out exactly what is making all these calls to mySQL. You are probbly running a lot of hacks you don't need, of these hacks many may not be optimized correctly.

At the end of the day you should not base what you install on if it adds an extra query or not. Say you make two queries for similar info, its possible to combine them into one large query. When using 2 queries it takes .1 seconds per query or .2 seconds for both to run. But when combined the large query takes .5 seconds to execute.

In that case using 2 small queries is faster then one large one. In some cases it can be the other way around. So you should always test and figure out the best method for your forum/server.