Thinking on some potential UI changes for displaying threads.

Currently, we view 1 post at a time, with slight indications elsewhere in the thread as to where the message is that you're viewing. I have it this way for a few reasons:

• Each post can be read without distraction from other posts.
• Upon accessing each post, it is unmistakable which post you are reading.
• You aren't presented with a wall of text upon clicking on something.
• There is always one location on the page to read a post, not several, and you'll never have to scroll to read what you're going after.

I'm proposing to find a way to display all posts, in their entirety (or at least, in their entirety without having to navigate to a different page), for the entire thread.

This is because in trying to reply to a number of posts recently, I've wanted to review something in a previous post in the thread, but I didn't want to navigate away from the page I was currently on.

Other threaded comment systems (see: Reddit) do something similar, but then sort by popularity, which is often pretty irritating if you're trying to read the progression of a discussion.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? Like the system the way it is? Wish it was different? Care at all?