Much earlier in Twitter's history, there was a setting you could change to either show or hide conversations between people you followed and ones you didn't; th

Much earlier in Twitter's history, there was a setting you could change to either show or hide conversations between people you followed and ones you didn't; they took it away on purpose. Personally I think quoting tweets and responding in there is the best way to reply to something publicly, but regardless, they aren't likely to change the @-reply behavior at this point.