Obviously, there's a wealth of information in the archives. But sometimes people don't know to search, sometimes the search doesn't always find stuff, and sometimes it's just nice to discuss the same thing again a year or two later.

This reminds me of the story "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson. If we're not allowed to forget that we've discussed a topic before, we're going to very quickly run out of things to talk about.

It's happened to me more than once. The forum will be quiet for a day or so, and I'll think "This would be a good time to ask about...naaaa... we talked about that. How 'bout... no, that was last month... uh, what about...".

I can see a future where all posts are simply questions and links to old threads. Yuck.