Actually, I wasn't implying that at all. I never said to ignore previous posts. When I joined this forum I actually spent days reading old posts -- there's HUGE value there.

When someone refers someone to another post, I interpret that they're saying "we already talked about this and you can read it here, but don't start a new thread on it." I don't interpret it as supplementing the conversation, but rather as diverting and closing it. Perhaps that's because no one ever says "hey, this is an interesting conversation and you might find additional value here." They just refer to the other post with a short comment about how this has already been discussed (by them) and the url.

I guess that's one of the disadvantages of email and forums -- I apparently interpreted these diversions wrong all along as it would seem at least one other person did. Just as a couple of you apparently mis-interpreted my post.