I'm still waiting for better comments, less like facebook and more like Google's own YouTube (or ideally like reddit and HN). The fact that you can +1 something but not have it rise to the top makes no sense at all to me.
While I get what you're saying, without threading people (in my circles, at least) tend to post in a conversationally progressing manner. Without threading it wouldn't look like a conversation at all, it would be, well, what you said. YouTube comments. Do you really want that?
