It is only one data point among many, I admit, and it would be unfair to characterize someone's expertise based solely on their choice of email quoting style. B

It is only one data point among many, I admit, and it would be unfair to characterize someone's expertise based solely on their choice of email quoting style. But in my (completely anecdotal) experience, there is more often than not a correlation between the two. Maybe it's just the email discussion lists that I frequent, where bottom posting tends to be the norm, and top-posted messages mostly come from people who could have answered their own question had they bothered to spend 30 seconds on Google before going to the mailing list.