This has been fixed with 1.7.3 (Version 1.0 Preview Release). That was a sore spot with me too, but now it's almost a perfect browser. You just can't beat tabbed browsing, especially on a site like Free Republic.
Even Firefox 1.0 has a bug or 2. When you reload on a message board, after new messages have been added to the thread, you do not end up in the same place you were before you reloaded.