[eluser]smilie[/eluser]
I am not sure it could be done otherwise. However, your front page should not be presenting _all_ topics unless I am wrong. It will probably show forum categories maybe and some info about categories. Basically, there will be no need to count _everything_ you have in forum?
Other things you may consider is database optimization (good and enough indexes and primary keys, good queries (avoid select * from ...) and such). You could also consider query cashing and then run those 10 queries once per hour and cache those results. It will then not be 100% up to date - but should improve performance significantly once DB grows.
Regards,
Smilie
