Back in the ol' days it was necessary to start a new thread after 100-200 replies because loading and refresh times suffered when the number of replies reached that level......
Now, and for quite sometime mind you, depending on your preference, one can establish a # of replies that will appear by setting a value under the setting called thread pagination....it can be set as low as 20 if one wishes.
So, your reason in creating a new post being "to allow for easier loading on slow connections" is "something", I'm just not sure what it is yet.