I found late last night that even though my laptop browsers (Firefox - default and Google Chrome - secondary) both where restored to access after clearing those browser histories and cookies, my iPhone "Safari" browser was still getting the "Forbidden" response when trying to go to the main forums page (I hadn't cleared the history - duh). I cleared the browser history on the phone and kaboom - access restored!

I did all this without having read Paul's post above -

I hope the message on clearing browser history can get shared so others can regain access as needed.

PS - Before starting to type this post there was no lag time between various actions and page switching, but as I went to click post reply, the action time took 15-30 seconds to actually happen. Still something going on that is affecting action speeds - Booo!!!