“Subscribe to this forum” is roughly equivalent to tracking a category, “Mark this forum as read” corresponds to the “Ignore …” button in the “Unread” view, and you can bookmark that view to use it as your starting point.
It’s not “progress”, but it’s not worse either. Just different. After actually using these for a bit, I’m satisfied with my ability to follow what’s going on. I hope it will be similar for you.