This seems like a good idea. I just want to make clear that I do not see this as a away to sanitize the proposed 5 vote change in the latest release. That proposed change is a big mistake. But your suggestion is exactly the kind of innovation we need on the site. Rather than tinkering with things that don't need to be fixed and putting through changes that drive people away, they should be looking at site enhancements, apps, better retention. etc. Let's get some new people here and work to keep them.

If your suggestion could be implemented without making the site seem overly complicated , I'm all for it. I also wonder if we can have some "simple" and "richer" layouts for the site. People like me will probably stay with the simple interface most of the time, but if someone could click a button and change the view on their screen to include more features they want, that would be great. Fun features, real time communication, useful tools, analytics; it would be great if we could just have those but not clutter up the simple view too much. Give people the click-click option of changing view screens for their interface. I think that would give us the best of both worlds and help us retain more people who prefer one or the other.