The Favorites link is pretty useless to most of us because there are so many boards that get marked over time.
What? I believe it's the MOST used link. You know, you can REMOVE boards you're no longer interested in.
As to the Kept Messages: Yes, it's one more step. But in the past, you could only see the first hundred or so. The rest were there somewhere, but hidden. Now you can go from page to page.