[Merriweather]

As a site that has used groups (just as forum threads until now) for over three years now, I have to disagree with your observations, Trana. On my site, groups are just friends posting together over a common bond, but also just personal chit chat. If the community needs general info, they search and post in the forums, there's no need to search a group. Unless you're a member of the group, what goes on in the group really isn't the concern of the other members. My site is considerably large and just has no need for searching the content of the groups.

As for subscribing to threads in groups, sure, it's desirable, but the front page of the group tells you if there's been new posts, so it's not a huge deal (IMO) that you don't get an email.