I often open my posts with a quote pulled from the comment that I'm responding to, just so that the post will make more sense when pulled out of context; e.g. o

I often open my posts with a quote pulled from the comment that I'm responding to, just so that the post will make more sense when pulled out of context; e.g. on searchyc.com or when someone is scanning down the page. Me too. But I think that not having formal blockquote formatting subtly encourages me to avoid sprinkling blockquotes throughout my posts -- or, worse, sprinking my words throughout an endless series of blockquotes. Instead I generally restrict myself to one big blockquote, in italics, at the start of my own writing, and I think very carefully before I try to insert a blockquote in the middle of a post. Such mid-post quoting requires careful wording and formatting to make the change in author clear, which is appropriate because it encourages me to just write in my own words and leave other people's words alone. :) I think that's a useful constraint. Totally. Needless blockquoting is really annoying. The lack of blockquote formatting also encourages us to keep the blockquotes as short as possible. And it helps the flow of comments and responses to flow nicely down the page -- it's easy to see if a block of text is part of a post or part of a response to that post, because (with the exception of code blocks) only responses change the indentation. I agree with this bit, too. In short, I think the missing blockquote formatting is a feature, not a bug. Also, blockquoting just clutters up the page needlessly, with the same text twice.