I've posted to many boards and on every other board the poster's names are quite prominent and people would often respond basing their posts on WHO they were responding to rather than the issue and it always led to a series of personal attacks.
Here, although the posters' names are there, the names are displayed in such a way as to deemphasize them. The result is that most of the time I don't even notice WHO I am responding to as opposed to WHAT I am responding to. Oh well, now I've said it ... and I feel so much better!
LOL...I know what you mean! I visit another board quite frequently (pregnancy one) and believe it or not, things get quite nasty from time to time. The upside to that is, you know who the bad apples are (people that like to start fights on a particular topic or on a particular person) and you can usually choose to "ignore user" on that board. It's great! LOL