I used to be able to remove all the text of a quote, but still leave the little blue chevron that would allow people to click and see the post. Now I can’t do that–not even if I leave a space in between.
There seems to be a trend in board administration to return little niggly settings back to the status quo. And it is useful–it makes threaded mode still work, without having to quote a really long post, or figure out exactly how to snip it.