The moderated forums are somewhat buggy with this new forum code. I've been gradually fixing it. *fistshake* The "read" moderated forum link should be obviously gray compared to the "new topics" moderated forum message. It sounds like you want all of the red taken out of it, though.

Another thing you can do is check the date/time stamp next to each forum title. You might notice that's buggy at times, though. :-P