Re: reply etiquette

I agree that it would probably be a good thing to have some sort of 
mechanism to indicate how to reply to a list, and perhaps whether or 
not an individual sender would like an individual reply to a given 
message.
But not all problems can be solved by technology.  Etiquette is very 
definitely one of them.  There really is no substitute, 
etiquette-wise, for each one of us personally to adopt the old saw: 
"Be liberal in what you accept and be conservative in what you 
generate."
As a very early poster in this thread said, sometimes even very 
decent people Just Have a Bad Day.  (I remember I had one once.)  On 
those days, anyone and everything into which they come into contact 
will be woefully deficient in their eyes.  This doesn't mean that 
everyone and everything should be changed.
Similarly, as the net has grown large, all sorts of people have been 
added to it who pretty much permanently have bad days.  These people 
will complain loudly and often about things, or willfully and 
persistently fail to understand basic concepts.  Again, that doesn't 
mean the things should be changed.
Remember there is only so much change even a standard can produce. 
We could promulgate a nice standard set of headers and semantics via 
some RFC's or BCP's, and we could be sure that ten years from now, 
less than half the instances of software out there will be paying 
attention to them.
I don't mean there's no point in trying to clarify standards.  I do 
mean that we shouldn't run to grease every wheel that squeaks.