OT: Question re: reply format of this mailing list

[Henry Andrew]

Hope I don't offend anyone by posting off-topic, but i'm curious as to
why you all reply to messages by attaching an in-line message and
writing your replies within the original message under the relevant
parts?  Personally I think it is quite difficult to read the reply this
way, especially in plain-text mode.  Is this something that has been
decided at the list-level or is this considered to be generally good
practice?
 
Personally, I tend to strip the original mail altogether and just retain
the subject line, so that I don't get a mailbox overloaded with multiple
copies of the same data [text].  If there is something that I feel needs
to included in the reply, I include just that specific text within
quotes above my reply.  When I then come to search for a message thread,
I don't need to plow through several instances of the same text, and can
simply read the thread by date order.  Is there anything fundamentally
wrong is doing things this way?
 
Sorry for getting on the soap-box--just curious as to 'why'!
 
--Andrew