kb> The reason I dislike [*]-posting ... it takes
  kb> significantly more time to figure out precisely
  kb> what it is that's being responded to.

Quite true. I find that normally my eyes skip over
quoted text, sometimes ignoring it completely. I will
back up and read it if I have to in order to make sense
of the response. If I've been following a thread, I
often don't need to do this. But quoted fragments are
still one of the most useful aids to communication in
email. We never do that in snail mail.

True story: When I was an 11-year-old Boy Scout, I
wrote a letter to my parents from camp in response to
something they had sent me. It went something like:

  Dear Dad and Mom,

  Thank you for the letter. The answer to your first
  question is yes. The answer to your second question
  is no. ... etc. ...

Classic. Only a kid would do something like that.

-- 
Lynn David Newton
Phoenix, AZ