It is actually easier for a new story to be seen especially if you are in one of the lesser used categories. New posts still show up as new post bolding the sub forum with the new posts. Sure it takes a couple more clicks if you are someone who want to read everything on the site but it does save some people time who say have zero interest in a mixed fight, seeing someone story requests, and/or don't want to see extreme violence. And new threads/posted on threads still go to the top.
One of the complaints writers had with the old system was it was very easy to get buried if you were an unknown and /or in a lesser popular category. If you didn't have people commenting on your thread you were quickly buried by a mix of new stories and older ones with a fan base that constantly commented or the writers who posted their stories in 15 parts spaced over 15 days.. This system mitigates that somewhat.
Also we may find less people angry over being conned into viewing a style they hate with a deceptive story title "Hottest fight ever " and it is a mixed fight..
And over time authors will figure out where they want their stuff. The default assumption is , unless otherwise indicated, every story is a cat fight. So some stuff was sorted based on title or the fact the writer had done 5 NHB style fights so we assumed their other 35 stories were the same unless the title showed otherwise.
It is no different than a video store.. if you name your tale of Amish romance "Vampire" and feature a guy sucking blood out of someone's neck on the cover, don't be shocked if they put it in the horror section first.
And it really isn't that huge a list of styles. Archives are people no longer on the site, general and requests aren't stories (and some people REALLY wanted those away from the stories), Non English isn't a concern for a lot, so that is really 10 categories which break out most of the main fight styles. Honestly if you were willing to wade through the big pile that the stories were to read anything new a couple more clicks isn't really much more effort.