PS now I'm really pissed..spent 1/2 hour writing a follow up post and the website expired just before I posted.

On any message board that I'm on, I've always gotten into the habit of doing a quick ctrl-A and then ctrl-C (select-all, then copy) before submitting the post. That way, you've got the long post in your clipboard, in case the website eats it, and you can always just start up a new post and hit ctrl-V (paste) to revive your work. Agora isn't the only forum with this issue. It's a good insurance habit to get into, like automatically hitting a quick ctrl-S (save) every five minutes when working on other projects with software that doesn't have auto-save enabled.