Actually I don't think it takes much to have a forum where people have to scroll down to see the whole forum list, but you are right that the number of forums with pages and pages is relatively small. Having said that I hope that Mike and Kier intend for xenForo to be the software of choice for big forums because it is they who have the biggest influence on what other forum owners choose. In my opinion.
Font size is easily adjustable.
The forum list is the most accessed page of a forum. It needs to be perfect. For that reason, I think extra options need to be there for admin who need them.
With regard to the number of people who use the expanded vs the concise, I would expect the vast majority of regular forum users choose to use the traditional (expanded) forum list. That is my intention.
But those people who are new to the site benefit from having the concise overview of the forum list the first time it is displayed so that they are less likely to be intimidated by the sheer quantity of text and are less likely to be phased by 'choice overload'.
This is why I considered this change to be so important that I was prepared to pay for it. I won't mind paying for it for xenForo either, because my forum will look better and more unique than everyone else's. But my helpful nature compels me to suggest it as a standard feature because it solves so many problems.
