Personally (not that my opinion counts for much around here just ask Phil
), I'm not sure that there would (currently) be much point in having machine specific threads. Firstly because it would mean creating a whole load of sub level threads which in turn leads to a whole load of questions: do we create threads for all machines belonging to members? do we wait for a member to ask for a thread before creating it? what if he/she is the only person with that machine? Now supposing instead of machine specific, it was brand specific. Sammy's original post suggested that this might avoid "newbies risking to start individual machine-related topics that may have been discussed many times before." Now whilst this might be the case with a Spaz, but what if you own a 3 group Gaggia XD and someone is posting about using their Trad with pods? I'm not even sure that there's a real need to search for machine specific info (beyond the current search capabilities). How many machines are actually the same? Ie. exact same brew pressure, temp, necessary flush times, without bringing in more subjective elements such as taste, beans, water etc.?
I agree that we have probably reached a point where greater division is needed in the top level topics. But if we open that up to too many permutations, then it is just going to get confusing. MrCapp's recent Andreja problems has received a wealth of support from a wide variety of E61/HX users, which might not have been the case if his post was made in a thread directed solely at Andreja users.
Anyway, I'll have a word Phil and see what he thinks, but at the end of the day, he's the only one that can actually change this and at the moment he is totally snowed under.
D