Having marked everything as read, now I'm getting the same behavior as in the My Home feature of the past. That's gonna make life a lot simpler, and I'm feeling a lot better about this upgrade.
For many years I was helping an old Joomla based site that fell to pieces every time either PHP or Joomla updated. Young bloods moved it over to Wordpress, which obsoleted my ability to help, and I gratefully surrendered the reins. Hope these initial potholes/learning curve experiences smooth out quickly, and I'm looking forward to a brighter future.
If I could dream, I'd wish for a Watched dropdown that showed the threads with new content right in the dropdown. Now that would be slick.