Robert, Thank you for the explanation.

I've always wondered why people posted the entire message at the top and now
I understand how it all started, but isn't it a bit archaic today? I'm
referring to your explanation about the delays etc.. Personally I have never
seen a response posted before I've seen the original post. If I had then
perhaps this would make more sense to me. Is usenet still this slow and
expensive today and if so, why on earth do people use it?

Keep in mind I'm not talking about quoting a portion of the message to bring
attention to a specific matter. That makes total sense. However, just as I'm
sure that no one here starts reading a book or the newspaper from the very
beginning every they set it down and then pick it up again, I don't see why
they feel we should have to re-read the original message over and over again
every someone post a response to the original poster. Just imagine what it
would be like if this was how we sent, received and re-sent letters to
people.

Is there still more here that I'm missing or is this just a matter of some
people have done it a certain way for so long and they're so set in their
ways that nothing is going to convince them to change? Personally I don't
really care if they change or not, if I don't want to scroll through all the
previous message they have posted and re-posted, I just bypass it, which is
what I find myself doing often.

Thanks again for your reply.

PJ