If you create a new forum reply the version is one. fine. if you again go the forum reply you just created and try to edit the version will still remain 1 untill you edit it and send it for publiishing.
I am also trying to get rid of the obligatory subject field in forum replies. I tried to follow the steps described here, but cannot get it to work. Can somebody post a complete and working example of edit_attribute.tpl?
After trying out several solutions, I finally managed to get the subject filled in automatically. Just in case anybody is looking for the same thing, here is the final edit_attribute.tpl I used: