It took me about 6 months to realize that, on the new PC, postcounts were displayed on the posts. Somehow I always missed them when looking. XD; Never bothered me, though. I now only use my postcount as a measure of how active I am. For example, I'll look at my postcount and tell myself that I can't stop posting that day until I have a certain number of posts just to keep my activity up and stuff. XP Plus, it's fun to see when I'm at a nice round number (like 6000, which is my next, I think. o_O) That's it, though. o_o Otherwise it's just a number.
I notice people because of the quality of their posts. ^_^; I could honestly care less about a little number in the corner.