Is there anyway to display the last poster's avatar in trow without a plugin? Been searching around but all methods require the plugin.
It is possible according to labrocca. In
this thread he said it is definitely possible without the use of a plugin, but I'm not sure if it requires core edits or not.
Why don't you use
First / Last Post Avatar by Tomm? I've been using it for a lot of time and it works like a charm without being intrusive or adding too many queries (only one extra query).