I've increased the # of posts per page (the number of posts before splitting off another page) from 15 to 20. I hope this doesn't cause too much suffering.
Isn't there someway you could include an option within the individual settings, so you can display 10/15/20 posts by one of those dropdown selections, or radio buttons?? if so that might be a good idea, that way if anyone finds problems with a setting, they could just change it to a lower number of posts. (if of course you feel up to the challange of re-coding Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!)
Actually, there is such an option: Control Panel > Edit Options > Default Posts per Thread I suppose I should have mentioned it.