is there any setting in my use control panel to adjust the # of posts shown per page? I'd like to see more posts on a single page instead of paging through multiple pages. for example, show 50 posts on a page
The number shown is a trade-off between inconveniencing the user with multiple pages and minimizing server load when all someone really wants to do is to look at the last post or posts on a topic... no need to load the last 50 in that case.
There is a mod that would allow this, I can look into it.