Mary .Lou--the 'up' arrow is right at the very bottom of the page...for a long time mine looks like a little grey box, but eventually the arrow shows up for me. It is just above the "Time Now...>Last Visit....Exec Time" line at the very bottom.
Sandee--for me the lightbulb does open a small screen that lists all the forums--it's more of a pop up screen than a drop down screen, and for me it is just as fast to click on "Miniature Horse Forums" and go to the actual page--that loads just as fast as that navigation pane listing the forums. I had never been in the habit of using the drop down menu, so going to the main forum page is no hardship for me--it's what I've always done.
I do find that when I use the quick reply box at the bottom it is all too easy to click on something I don't want--I click on the box & nothing happens, so then I click again. By then the screen is already in the process of opening, I guess (it is very slow to respond) and so my second click lands on some function key in the reply box--I frequently find I am typing in italics, or with my letter struck out...very annoying. I have to delete it & click the offending box to go back to regular type--chanda, perhaps that is how you have lost all your edit functions? Try clicking the little lightbulb (tiny lightbulb, just looks like a box with an indistinguishable symbol in it to me) to the left of the eraser, at the top left corner of the reply box? Does that fix your problem?