There is a setting in the version I downloaded a few days ago. In the advanced settings you can find them:

default_view = 1 table
fold_threads = 1 yes

I didn't see a setting for changing how anything is sorted, but I wasn't looking for that. It does show an indicator when there are new replies, it's a red box around the icon to the left of the topic title.

Maybe you know this already, maybe not. It might help someone else too.