Sure, it is sooo convenient to have to hunt down one hundreds forums in 10 thousands threads to find something interesting, instead of having messages coming to you, neatly filed in their own folder, sorted as you like, with unread messages clearly marked and where you can skip a whole thread with the press of a button.


And we all know that all kinds of forums have the same interface, so it's easier to adapt, while the same email program you use will change every day surprising you


BTW, the only email programs that royally screws up threading (as well as anything else) are those from microshaft, so there are plenty of alternatives.
Even so, mostly only users that decide to use those inferior options are affected, while all the users of a forum are affected by a change/cock-up in the forum's software and/or configuration.

Sure, we all know that searching in a forum is sooo effective that you never see the same question repeated over and over


OTOH my mail program only allows me to sort the messages by thread, date, sender, subject and search based on any of them as well as on the content. Clearly inferior