The old community server forum is only barely alive-- it's being kept around so you can get at some of the reference stuff via the search tool, etc.. I doubt if the NTTP feed is still working.
This new one does not have news reader support. There are a variety of notification options including RSS feeds, email follows, social network notifications-- probably some others. I don't know if any of these mechanisms support responding offline....
What I'd like is some way to view discussions as threads that can be scrolled rather than having to click through multiple pages. If the current system can't do news feed, maybe something in the web UI that would accomplish this? If the current forum UI is all there is, I probably won't be looking at it much except to check when new builds are available and probably won't be posting through it at all.