Back in the day I used to get instant notification (email) for all replies immediately in my e-mail to any thread that I posted in. Now it seems like the default isn't instant notification ... does anyone know how to make it the default? Right no i'm doing the 'stop watching' and then selecting 'watch thread' again to select instant notification for each thread...

 

You change all that through the 'My Settings' under your profile at the top of the page.

It'll give you options for everything in there.

 

My Settings, then Notification Options, then you should see a checkbox under Notification Preferences that says "Watch every topic I reply to" and then underneath that, "If enabled, choose default notification type." I believe the default is Delayed Notification, but Immediate Notification is one of the options.