Wow, I can't believe nobody else has this problem! I removed the avatar picture from my old account, and then created an entirely new account and I'm still having huge problems with pages only loading the header and footer in the new forum. I can't imagine that is a problem local to me as I've tried it on several different computers, with different browsers, and now with different accounts.  Anyone seen this with their own accounts?

  I'm still having huge problems with pages only loading the header and footer

That happens when Javascript is disabled.  Do you have any script control add-ons on your browsers?

I've just added forum.processing.org into my trusted sites in IE, and lowered the trusted sites security defaults to Low, it's had no impact on the problem, would you have expected it to?  I've got no script controls enabled, infact this is a pretty new machine i'm working on now, only a couple of weeks out of the box and I've not messed with the IE setup, it's pretty vanilla other than the change i've just done to trusted sites.  The i'm seeing the same problem in chrome and firefox on this machine and my desktop at work.  I don't know if there is a corporate policy in effect for scripts, I'll go ask IT.

You shouldn't need to add it to trusted sites or lower any browser security settings...  If it's happening regardless of the machine you're using I'd guess it's an issue with your account.

Thanks Blindfish, thats the assumption i'm working on too.  I've created a new account, but exhibits the same problems.  There is no problem at all with the loading of the pages if i'm not logged in, so a solution for now is to just browse the site logged out, and only do battle with the page loading when I want to post something :(