Change Style of First Post (from vb2 hack)

[kira]

For vb2, Chen created the very useful "Change Style of First Post" hack that allowed you to create a unique look for the first post in a thread. This gave you the option of making the first post appear more like an article, or even just an image, with the replies within that thread simply look like regular posts. (You could also restrict this layout change to specific forums only, so the rest of your forums could have the regular thread style.)

Here's an example from my site. Only the threads in my "article" forum use this hack.

I know that with the creation of the Articles hack, this may not have as much of a following, but what I liked about this hack was that since these first posts are regular forum posts (just with different template style), they appear within searches.

Is there any interest in creating something like this for vb3, assuming it seems like a useful hack to others? Or is there some other hack that has these capabilities?

Many thanks.