Thread seen as a discussion (changes structure of topic)

[Bloc]

I would not say bubbles. A separate subdiscussion - yes - but not "shunned into corners" since you are free to ravel in any of them. And more importantly, the reader can choose where to keep on reading.

I am kind of surprised of the logic here: you generally do not like off-topic ..err..topics but you also think on-topic tools would hinder real communication.. So which is it? You want on-topic or off-topic discussions?

And also: by actually making "boards" a aprt of the software, its already selected what the direction discussions are to take. If not, then why do we need boards at? If you think about, making a discussion having 1 or 2 levels deep is just a continuation of categories, boards, child-boards..to topics.I would rather say "waves", not "bubbles" since they certainly aren't completely cut off from the rest of the topic.

[Kindred]

Not, bloc...  I disagree with your logic again.

Boards are a categorization to guide where a conversation should start.
Threaded view is something compketely different and has all of the issues that I have already stated, making conversation exclusive and unfriendly to adding new thoughts.  Seriously.... I have been doing forums for nearly 30 years now... And I have yet to see threaded view actually work.