I'm still digesting the whole of this chat, I hope to post another answer in that thread that summarizes my current thinking. This chat experience has demonstrated to me that I don't think best on my feet.
@Jeff, If you remove the @ and the postowner you are mauling the message, which is what all the fuss is about. If the script only removes the @, there would be no problem. My 0,02€
@Mark The whole Meta.SO experience is demonstrating I'm an idiot (Dilbert Principle). :)