Re: Out of order posting (was:: Load 0.20 on a freshly installed idle system)

[context deliberately excised]

This seems to be a perennial topic that also seems to be addressed by
Postel's Law.

Email has become a victim of its own success, with so many clients/MUAs
adding their own "enhancements" along the way. I agree that interwoven
replies with vigorous removal of unneeded text makes the most sense in
terms of clarity (I can't recall in which of the several iterations of this
debate this came up.) Given the ubiquity of gmail, making that change —
making the reply text a quoted block where replies could be interwoven,
rather than top-posting — would make an enormous difference. But then we
get into the long grass with de facto monopolies and whatnot. Maybe we
could not treat this topic as the catnip it seems to be…let it go, no one
will change their mind and no MUA will be rewritten to meet anyone's
expectations.