Dmitry,
Yes, that is the case. But by the 3rd and 6th and 15th commenter on a thread, they must delete yards of paragraphs before they can even start their comments. It's extremely distracting and some of our members have said it makes them think twice about posting comments.
However, if instead of "Reply" you use "New Comment" it works the same way as this 'quick reply' in your user support forum. -- a new box opens for us to make a comment and it doesn't quote previous entries in the thread.
The name "New comment", though, doesn't make it clear that that's what you'll get... or maybe, that button's location is dopey. Our members don't recognize what it offers them, maybe it's because they don't notice it 'segregated away' from the comments boxes
Instead of Edit | Delete comment | Reply in each message header, that function should move up into the header so it says:
Edit | Delete | Reply | Quote - where Reply should just give you a new box in the thread, without any quoted text, And Quote could be the new more accurate name for what "Reply" currently gives you.
Now that I've thought that through, I believe it's really a good solution. I hope you can make this change easily and quickly. Thanks. - fb