But having to click on them to see if there are any responses, and then having to wait for those responses to load, takes too long and it's way too easy to miss a response. This whole thing could be easilly simplified by simply having a few root folder areas and messages listed chronologically within them. Optionally either listing subjects only or entire messages. In subject only mode it should be possible to read a message by clicking on the subject, and then go back to the subject only list by hitting the Back button in the browser. There should also be a filter to list only new messages since the member's last visit, and a filter to list only messages within a given time period.
People can easilly keep track of message threads by subject name.
Its much quicker and easier that way. Please visit the form Z forum on AOL to see a working example of how this is done. Its much simpler, but its much easier to keep track of the messages. In the mean time, I suggest we all keep our messages at the root level, distinguishing them only by subject, rather than embeding them hierarchically. I for one am not going to go digging into the hierarchy of every message to read its responses.