The flag bar doesn't slow me down at all, whereas I had problems for the past few weeks with FR locking up for some reason I have yet to figure out. No other side did that, and it doesn't make sense as far as I know.
The annoying thing about this format is that the 'from' commentor is in bold while the recipient 'to' is in regular print. I tend to look for who a comment is addressed 'to' rather than who wrote it. It would be better to put 'to' in bold, or put both the to and from in bold, so you can pick up both names easily from the clutter. A larger topic font would help, not in red though. The fewer font colors the better.
Also, some heavier or darker horizontal rules between comments, or a greater space between them, would be nice- the lack of a solid divider (or the closeness of the comments) makes them all blur together as if they were all one topic. More space between might be less cluttered.
I still need a spell checker and something to keep me from getting my fingers all twisted up so that I won't keep typing "Palestininas."