Don't know for sure, but I remember some discussion a while back about a brief 'moratorium' on replies when someone first joins the forums and maybe if someone returns after being inactive for some period of time, some sort of spam-mitigation policy IIRC.  I may have hallucinated that, Tova, maybe not.

Have you tried PM'ing a mod, say Jafo or DrJBHL?

EDIT: I just realized how Duh! it was to ask you a question.  PM one of them.