It's funny! Duplicate threads are useful in that people miss the first thread. For example, this is the first time I've seen this article and I surf daily. Why should this thread be deleted? I haven't seen it yet.
I rankles me that threads are deleted as duplicates by people that love nothing more than to police. In fact a number of times I've had more than 300 posts on a thread and some nimrod decides to write the mods saying that its a duplicate. DELETE A POPULAR DUPLICATE!
Last year, I get a wanker writing that my tsunami thread was a duplicate, demanding that it be deleted. It just happened to be an update from the original that was under the false impression that no one died. At the point I posted they feared the number to be in the thousands. Why did it matter to this guy (who never actually posts on threads) to police threads? His answer, "Rules are rules." It turned out to be an exceptionally big story WITH MULTIPLE DUPLICATES.
Can't we just enjoy a good old fashioned thread without a request to pull a thread because it's a duplicate?