The number of views has nothing to do with how long a thread takes to load.

The number of replies is only important if you read in "flat" mode. That causes all replies to display at once.

Much better is "threaded" mode which only displays the contents of one post at a time, the subject and author of each post below, along with the date posted. This makes it easy to see the most recent posts, keeps all the posts for a single topic together, and eliminates the need to split a thread for your convenience.

Thread split decisions are best left to moderators.