I've seen a few dead posts where there was an innocent misunderstanding or wrong assumption. In those cases it would have been beneficial to keep the post visib

I've seen a few dead posts where there was an innocent misunderstanding or wrong assumption. In those cases it would have been beneficial to keep the post visible and post a response, so that readers with similarly mistaken assumptions could have seen a correction. Small minority of dead posts though. They can be vouched for actually but of course this is unlikely to happen. I agree that most dead posts would be a distraction and good to have been kept out.