While I have a fairly good grasp of the structure of XF, I am primarily a python developer so I really have no good sense of "right and wrong" so to speak. I can look at something in Python and say "OMG thats crap!", but php not so much.
I am busy adding a thread rating system (you know the...
This should work for you if I understood your request.
In the provided template editor, edit the template "post":
<a href="{xen:link threads/post-permalink, $thread, 'post={$post}'}" class="item muted postNumber" title="{xen:phrase permalink}">#{xen:calc '{$post.position} + 1'}</a>...