Cheers from Maryland!
I agree with the decision to not allow members to delete an entire thread. For an OP to get peeved and just delete the entire thread and everyone else's thought and effort is just wrong.
I DO think a member should be able to delete their own single post. There are times when that is best -- for example a recent comment about illness caused a Pavlovian response on my part that was ill considered, and I was able to delete it, with the thread staying alive -- and the quote from me stayed in the response from the other member. And that's fine.
It's true that you can delete all the content of a post, substituting an icon or other comment, and that will work for me, though I prefer to be able to delete the post. That may not be possible, I get it.
One design change I would personally like to see is a list of images and documents associated with a particular thread, so that one would not have to search paw through a thread to search for the latest schematic. LOL, I'm pretty sure not possible with this forum software.
On a positive note, this forum is special. Despite the obvious diversity in outlook/politics/worldview, the forum has remained pretty stable for a good long while. And I personally thank Doug, our moderators, and members for this. Not all forums are that successful.
Yeah, I'm old, so I'm allowed to gush good.