I just don't read posts like the one above. My brain literally refuses to bother anymore -- it scans the first couple of lines, sees the stuff it's already read, sees the repeated lines, and then starts looking around for something else to do.
The author's actual intelligence couldn't be better disguised if it came in the shape of a banner ad.
To be quite honest, I find that format easier to read (well, why else would I have posted it that way?)
A short snippet that is being responded to puts the text in context, allowing the reader to see exactly what I'm going on about, without reading the article over and over, matching up what part, exactly, I'm responding to.
Sure, massive copy-and-paste is a waste of time, and obscures the post. However a lack of context, in my opinion, will make things even more confusing to the reader, especially in the case of the text that's being responded to being on a different page.
Your repeated lines... aren't repeating anymore, presumably thanks to the magic of editing. That is a remarkable improvement. The sight of the same sentence being echoed over and over, a sight which practically screams "enraged fanboy", is now absent.
My other problem with the point-by-point rebuttal is that all the chaff (in the form of those detailed but disconnected footnotes) threatens to obscure the bottom line, which in this case is "it isn't 2003 anymore and X has actually made a lot of progress since then". Basically, what I wanted to read was your second post. Which is much better than the first because it's written in prose -- connected sentences that speak in your voice and tell a story -- and not in chopped-up bullet points.
Now, if this were a detailed design review of a windowing-system project, things would be different, and I'd agree with you that your format is just fine.
Perhaps the issue here is that you obviously know and care a great deal about the design details of windowing systems, whereas I would rather read a short, colloquial summary of the state of play and then go to bed. ;)
