LH>    It still seems a bit too much for me.  It is so easy to just do silt
 LH>    max without needing any switches.

What is so hard?  It's the difference between typing this:

SILT MAX

 or...

SILT MAX -2a

I don't see a huge increase in labor or time there, do you?  ;-)
If it's a real problem, here's a batch file for you.

{at}echo off
c:\max
silt max -2a

Save that as SILTMAX.BAT.  Then you only have to type "SILTMAX",
thus saving
you from typing the space.  See?  Now you have to type even less!  

 LH> Maybe I should just join the others and quit bbsing altogether.

Well, if simple upgrades distress you that much, perhaps you should.  You're
going to be put thru a lot of upgrades for the "Y2K", and some
programs will
die on you, so you'll be in a world of upgrades and replacements come that
time.  Better that you get the core BBS part out of the way now, no?

It will take you a few hours to install the Max 3.x upgrade and make sure
you've made all the changes you'll need to make.  (Most are in the MSGAREA
and FILEAREA.CTL files, and a little where accesses are concerned)  It's not
as hard as you're making it.  If this is too hard, keep on with v2.x until
it's useless.  

 LH> This is why I have major problems with the way software authors write
 LH> their programs.

You're taking your fear of upgrading and projecting it on software authors.
Relax, make a backup of your existing setup, and do the upgrade, and you'll
see it's not as incredibly hard as you're making it out to be.  After all,
you have 100's of people in this echo to walk you thru it.  What more could
you ask?

--gary

--- Maximus v3.01