PM organization

[SHOBizzy]

Ok, here's a toughy for someone if it's even possible. It's something that I've personally wanted to see happen in my forum.

I'm going to compare vBulletin for a moment to InfoPop UBB classic. I used to use their software before I converted over to vBulletin a few years ago and I think that their PM organization (at that time) is the only thing that I miss about that software.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, when you sent a PM to someone it was literally sent to that user and then they replied back, all in the same PM file. The only drawback to that system was that you could not reply to the person using the same PM until they responded back. Now I know that UBB used to use text files, some were absolutely HUGE and that was part of why I converted over to using a database, but I wonder if there is some way to get the same effect via vBulletin.

What this would do is make the PM boxes a little less congested and a lot smaller (PM quantity wise). With vBulletin you can have many, many PMs with the same topic header. UBB'd method was also a lot easier to follow with the same PM being tossed back and forth between users, it's all in the same "thread" so to me it's just easier to keep track of what is said between each other.

I do like the option of saving a copy in the sent folder, it's a good way of keeping records but maybe have some way of overwriting that item when it's replied to? It just seems like there should be a way to modify the current system to behave more like UBB so the PM box is less congested. I otherwise have zero complaints about vBulletin. And this really isn't a complaint, it's more of a "I wish it was a little different."

Does that make sense? Is something like this possible?

And here's another twist that I personally would like. "Editable" PM's. Where if you have additional thoughts about something you could go back and edit the PM you just sent rather than send a new one. The cut off time would be if the PM had been read.

Thoughts?