Speaking personally, I wouldn't say I feel they "get lost"
per se. I just think:
1) Tracking new resource activity is often best done by looking at the view you get in the 2nd image I showed in the OP, rather than always monitoring What's New; but it's a bit tedious to get to that view atm, especially because the menu up top doesn't allow you to eyeball the latest post from each resource subsection (b/c it makes you choose a resource subsection, unlike clicking on the Maps and Resources subforum; if you just click on the button shown in the below image, it just takes you back to w/e page you were currently viewing, rather than to the entire subforum. Not sure if that's intentional or a bug btw). It's about the number of clicks and even context switches a user needs to make in order to monitor things.
2) I feel like the the Latest Posts sidebar gives the best "exposure" to the first few things in it (unless you periodically manually check the What's New section, which I doubt most visitors do). These first few things can often be forum threads or even a string of icon submissions (the biggest/most active resource section). So, comparatively, the other resource subsections don't get as much exposure as they would if all their latest posts were shown smack dab on the top level forum like every other new forum post else is (and ofc icons would also get more exposure that way - I'm not hating on icons). Think of it this way: "Latest posts" only shows 5 posts, not all of which might even be from resource pages. But the subforum view can show 8 different posts from the Maps and Resources section at once.
1) is about site usability/navigation. 2) is about maximizing exposure of everyone's hard-worked-on creations.
As you noted, the other person who commented here expressed feeling like resources get lost in the noise. What I take that to mean is a second opinion that, indeed, resources are a little more tucked away than some people would prefer.
Again, if this setup is intentional and if there's a downside to making the subforum visible at the top level (such as making scraping easier for bots? Just a guess), then I'll understand that there's a tradeoff the site isn't willing to make, and drop the subject. The main tradeoff I can think of is that making it its own forum section could crowd out further down sections like Programmer's/Artist's Discussion and Hosted Projects (if people don't scroll all the way to notice those).
Otherwise, it just seems like a simple change that could give more ease of access and visibility to the resources section. I just decided I couldn't keep this feeling inside anymore that something about keeping track of what goes on in the Maps and Resources subforum is frustrating, since I feel this friction every time I visit the site; so I made this thread.
