I know you get this when you go back to a page that had form data, but is there any way to avoid it? Either by having the browser automatically repost the data when going back, or some other trick to just avoid it altogether?

Not really. If you were using Proxomitron or something similar you could play with the HTTP headers to strip out any explicit server-side cache control pragmas. If the site is written to explicitly disallow browser caching, you're out of luck.

Use Firefox instead of IE.

I think firefox keeps all form data. Just be aware that if there is some javascript on the page that manipulates those forms, the javascript might change your form data when it gets re-run.

Firefox gives the message about the page containing POSTDATA. It still asks you to hit OKAY before continuing. I guess it's more of an annoyance more than anything, but sometimes it takes a page a while to re-load. On some sites, that becomes a bigger issue, depending on what I'm doing.

I think you might be confusing two different issues.

If the previous page contains a form, and you go back to it, all your filled-in information should still be there. In IE, if you do this, all the fields are blank.

If the previous page was the result of submitting a form, then firefox may ask if you want to resubmit the information. In IE, it will just say that the page has expired.

That's what I'm referring to. Is there a FireFox plugin that works around having to click okay and re-send the information? or is that too much of a security risk? I'm really just interested in avoiding the wait for the server to re-process the information.

it depends if you're going back to view information or going back to edit information.

if viewing, opera would work because opera caches all your history.
firefox doesn't have this ability.

there is no way that I know of (unless the website is well written and supports it), that you can go back and edit the info.

//krunk (^_^x)