I've posted the below as a feature request (http://drupal.org/node/21919), but I wanted to get peoples thoughts / see if this question was raised before.
Due to the modular nature of Drupal, it looks like there are multiple ways to architect a solution to the same problem. While this is a good thing, there should be a way for users/developers to post their architectures so that a "best of breed" architecture floats to the top.
I vote that there be a module, or feature on drupal.org that allows me to 'subscribe' to a thread. Too often do I not have anything to say but would like to follow a conversation. I don't want to post something like "just following this thread" all the time, nor do I tend to follow it from a bookmark as I would hope to do. I think it would be nice if the user profile kept track of 'bookmarked' posts, or subscribed posts, whatever.
We realize that the Drupal community is growing. One of the effects of this is that we needed better segmentation of concerns and focus. To that extent, we segregated the drupal.org forums. Specifically, we created a number of new forums like the services and hosting forum (for professional services, RFPs, hosting or anything business), the documentation forum, the media and document management forum (for developments related to documents, images and video), the social software and communities forum (for developments related to groups, users, profiles, moderation and rating), etc.