Ok, let's not kill each other.
You can add per-forum icons with 1 template change, but then you'll need icons for each forum...
In template forumhome_forumbit_level2_post, I changed
Code:
<img src="$stylevar[imgdir_statusicon]/forum_$forum[statusicon].gif" alt="" border="0" />
to
Code:
<img src="images/tiles/$forum[forumid]$forum[statusicon].gif" alt="" border="0" />
then I create a folder images/tiles and put gifs in there 01new.gif 01old.gif, 02new.gif, 02old.gif, etc.
There can never be enough vB3 hacks.