>>26 ID changes with IP address, not specific computer. I've used computers that have given me three different IDs over the course of several weeks. sleep is also belligerent simply because he has to explain this phenomenon roughly once a month, if not more. There ARE three trips though, but people do change trips occasionally. Either way, moving on.
So as far as I can tell we've moved past site privacy, cosmetics and most anonymity from OP, which has watered this down to receiving email updates? If not, by all means correct me.
As for the email update thing, I'm still not very fond of it. By the simplest method you'd get an email once someone replied to a thread you posted in. Of course, why would I bother to check an email to find out whether someone responded to a post or not when it's faster to just check the post itself? Speed brings up another interesting point: this site is the fasted site I use, bar none. No ads, no convoluted graphics, no extension-based interface and rapid server response. Add in this new mechanic and you end up with the server sending up to a few hundred emails every few minutes, things slow down. Not drastically, but the benefit seems less than the cost. Finally, the email amount. Yes, I know some threads die after a few posts, but what about the ones that..ah... don't? I'd much rather not get 200+ emails a week telling me that "somebody" said "something" when I can't even observe it in it's proper frame. There ARE ways to avoid this happening, but it requires (of all things) increased user tracking. While we successfully whittled out the repeat-suggestions, I'm still not convinced what we have left is worth anything.