Also keep in mind that the Ctrl and - does not collapse the entire hierarchy, which to me means that groups should also be collapsed. If you use the option to "Group Similar Kinds of Topics" it will not collapse the groups. I've posted details and screenshots about this in the following thread:
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthrea...ollapse&page=3
The fact that groups are expanded, creating a large list I have to scroll through, which is not not easily collapsed is one of those annoyances I've learned to live with. It bugs me, but doesn't significantly impact my use of the program and there are many other things I would rather they focus development on.
Control plus = has never been particularly useful to me either. If I can't collapse everything, it would at least be nice to be able to jump to the currently active topic after I've scrolled through hundreds of items. If you have "group by similar kinds of topics" selected, Ctrl = does nothing.
I appear to be one of the very few users who uses the option to group by similar kinds of topics AND show containing topic hierarchy, because the limitation of the Ctrl = and Ctrl - shortcuts doesn't seem to be experienced by many users.