Any way to bump "threads"?

If you're viewing the board in "New", then yeah, they show up as threads, and yes, you can bump things to your heart's content.

And yes, the rest of the board can avoid shameless bumping by choosing other views.

The default nesting isn't set to "newest" you have to manually change it yourself. So it's questionable how much it helps, although people still do it. I wish they would get rid of it, honestly.