It depends on my mood and means for participation.

If I want to catch up and find out what is going on right now, I goto the portal.
If I just want to process older threads and stay uptodate, I quickly goto the forum directly.

I feel that its great as an idea because most people dont feel like just going to an open forums without clicking on tons of links just to catch their intrerests. However just like Floris says there, I agree with her also and that is true to some or most people.

I think its great the way you have it because its easier in navigation and having all the newest to oldest links to every page updated so the guests/members wouldnt have to search the entire forums to find new postins. So yea, great job once again!

I have just bookmarked the page that I visit regulary (Which is the Building a Community List)

the "featured threads" section could be less prominent. I find myself mostly ignoring it, just scrolling past it or using the sidebar directly to get to the forum I want.