KM, I agree with you in that many times it's useful to see the context of a reply. I'll offer an alternative solution in the form of a shameless plug: have you seen Shendal's Perl/Tk Newest Nodes client? It uses my PerlMonks modules to provide a very nice threaded view of Newest Nodes. So what I do is that I usually click on the parent node of the one I want to see, then I get to see both the context and the replies with a single double-click. No more extra clicks!

Note: Shendal is now working on redesigning some of the interface aspects of the program, so if it feels a little funky (particularly the buttons and the actions) don't get discouraged, it will change for the better!

--ZZamboni