I ran into the same issue and made a similar suggestion. For long threads - or even shorter ones now (habit) - I use the "Latest" button which is directly under the initial post. This sorts the order in reverse so you see the last replies first. I had wished I could set my forum preferences to make this the default - but have moved on and just do the extra clicking myself.

This is not exactly what either of us would prefer (would prefer being able to show all and/or have random access to pages of posts by number) - but it's the workaround I'm employing at the moment.