The news site often called the main site tends to be the first port of call for new users who don't automatically discover the forums, the aim of which is to draw people to the forum.
It also brings in traffic from search engines as we are carrying lots of news and other information regarding SEAT which helps keep our profile high in regards to search rankings.
The site design has got a bit long in the tooth anyway, and most traffic is directed to it from the forum, but it does still
help increase the site search rankings.
There is no real need to directly link the forum back to the homepage, as any content of interest is more often than not discussed and linked to the forum anyway for general digestion.
Home is designed to link back to the forum index only and won't be changing.