I removed it because it caused way too much blank space and destroyed the "compactness" that I was going for. And I didn't like the way it was looking at me, with those wee beady eyes and that smug look on it's face, "oooh, buy my chicken, buy my chicken, read posts from eleventeen days ago....". Ahem, er, you get the picture.
That dropdown box is still in your My Profile page, so you can always go there to change it. The removal of it from the main forum pages is "designed behavior", to use a phrase from Capps.
BTW, the extra file was for adding back in Hop To, not this one. And Hop To is just as evil.
---Skorpion