It is because you are accessing the topics from the front page, at the top of the front page it reads "Recent Replied Message Forum Topics" and when you click on a topic you see the last reply and must scroll or paginate to get to the first.

If you would like to see the first page of replies/first post when you click on a topic you can access the Message Forum by clicking the "Message Forum" link on the Main Menu on the left side of this page. Then at the top of the page you will see a "Topic options" selector; change that to "View all topics".

Silly question. Whenever I click on a thread, it automatically takes me to the last reply in that thread. I prefer to have it start from the (oldest) first reply.

I tried changing this option under "Edit profile" > Comments Sort Order, but it makes no difference. Am I missing something? or is this a forum default?

Thanks,