I really want a way to see whether forums have new posts without manually visiting every single post in the forums. Currently, a lot of posts that I really don't want to read make forums constantly display "new posts here".

Lol.

Go to the main page then crtl+F "Mark all posts as read".
Click that and itll mark every post as read.

Any posts in a section afterwards will have the little lunatic icon beside it highlighted.
U could also use the "Today's Active Topics" near the bottom of the main page or the "New Posts" on the sidebar to search for new posts.