A while after joining my forum, I started a discussion: "Does 'Bookmark thread' actually do anything?" Got one reply: someone saying surely it must, though they didn't know what - be a good newby and shut up.
The truth? Without Discussion filters, bookmarks are a pseudo-feature: part of a system whose other essential parts have been omitted. You think they will be personal stickies, but they just ride the stream to oblivion. Can't search for them, can't filter: can only find them by paging through manually (90 pages, on my site): this, on a computer? Baffling, archaic, daft.
Does it really seem correct to ship with a pseudo-feature people have to scratch their heads over, and identify as nugatory?
Diagnosis: a principle - minimalism - taken to the point of a fetish. Lean is good, but this is anorexia.
And probably useless to say so - as it is with anorexia. Those who care end up watching in dismay, and grieving for opportunities lost. My forum is, after a year, about to ditch Vanilla. They didn't know enough to repair the self-mutilation. But they shouldn't have to.
Don't be surprised if bookmarks disappear in Vanilla 2, along with whispers. Minimalism itself may not be ideal, but minimalism plus extensibility is wonderful.
I do like that idea to make bookmarks personal stickies. Let it be so.