I've been an appreciative user of that icon
However, perhaps its distance from the topic title (subject?) text is too big for me so that I experience off-by-one syndrome and end up at an incorrect thread not too infrequently...
mouser told me that the little "new" image that comes after the topic title text can be clicked for the same effect so I've been trying this. I find that having to move my pointer both horizontally as well as vertically to be a bit inconvenient though (for the last post icon, I only need to move my pointer vertically to get to successive icons).
Never satisfied