I know when I was new to using BF - I didn't think or know to look back to the forum page and typically only used the Dashboard page... I ended up with a lot of messages and notifications the first time I went back to the Forum page... Not a huge deal but I feel that some newer users could benefit from having a notification right on their dashboard page that they've received responses to questions they posted on the forums or that someone messaged them directly.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.