>>9549
>on /lit/ this column auto-shrinks to the point that the date gets a line break, which doubles the height of ALL rows,

You can fix this yourself using a browser plugin called Stylish which lets you modify the CSS for any website and do all sorts of wonderful things to your web experience. The problem you're talking about was hugely annoying until I found Stylish. I posted some of the CSS modifications I'm using earlier in this thread, but here's the one you really want:

.catataba {
white-space: nowrap;
}

Put that into Stylish for gurochan.cx and from then on it will be impossible for the thread list table to break its lines. You can also use Stylish to change the size of the table so you can see more than 5 threads at a time, and make it dynamically resizable by clicking and dragging.

I also love using this to limit the width of the text in a post to make them easier to read without having to scan your eyes all the way across the screen.

.body {
width:6in;
}

That makes all posts 6 inches wide, but obviously you will want to adjust it to your taste.