The group forums are difficult to utilize because, once you belong to a few groups, it's too tedious to go through them all looking for new posts. Anything to help this process would be an improvement.
My ideal would be a latest activity feed on the Groups index page. Perhaps showing 10 posts with Group / Original Post Title / Reply Author / Date (with or without some notification of a new post or reply - an asterisk, perhaps?).
Failing that, however, some sort of color or symbol notification on the group name would be fantabulous.
As a moderator of a group, I find that group forums lack a lot of functionality. I would love to be able to "pin" my welcome notice to new members to the top, and delete threads that no one posts in anymore. your idea is a great start to big steps.
oh, hey, kookaburra, just noticed it was you. blind.