I sent a pm to Meatloaf earlier explaining what Dan was referring to and he said he now understands. This is the gist of it:
When you are reading a message that was posted back in July 2006, and want to see the messages around that one, it's cumbersome to "read 100". You have to read all of the posts in either the "previous 100" or the "next 100". If there was a way to go to the "message list" surrounding that message you could scan the list without having to read all of the posts. On Investor Village, it's set up so that from the message (let's say #1000 out of 9999 total messages), you can either select "Message List" which takes you to the list surrounding that message (i.e. #950 - #1050) or "Return to Message Board" (i.e. posts #9949 - #9999). It just makes it much easier if you are trying to find something posted earlier without having to wade through all the "noise" posts of "LOL!", etc.