Not for me, so I would think all hope is not lost... have you tried the 'Mark all as read' button? It's up there on the top of the page, left-hand side, IIRC.
-craig
"You can never have too many knives" -- Logan Nine Fingers
This sometimes happens as the result of a simple date conversion error. You'll notice that the reply to the first post in that topic is dated sometime in 2004. This happens occasionally and has to be fixed manually.