Hm, I don't see why people wouldn't quote a post in the middle of the thread...if they just randomly reply to someone, it confuses the people in linear mode too.
But if we're going to go with one or the other, I'm for getting rid of the silly threaded modes. I'll never understand what compels people to make their lives harder with extra scrolling and clicking on every post they wanna read. And some posts don't even show up in threaded mode.