If it is just to say "Thank you", you add nothing of content to the thread and is indeed perhaps better done in a /msg. It is more personal and nicer.

Thank you for your contribution! (This is actually a meta-thanks!) In fact that's what I wrote in the root node too, and what I currently do. Yet, as I also underlined there, it may leave the respondent with Warnock... yes, I also wrote that it would leave people reading the thread with him as well - of course an update cures that. And of course each solution has its own advantages and its best area of application, as you clearly point out. Though there are overlappings. Thus I started this thread to see whether there was some sort of consensus both wrt the current status and if any good idea/brainstorming could get out for an additional "official" solution. Personally I think that simpler nodes with no vote button and limited text content, to be rendered as a footnote to some other node would be very nice to have. But that's just me, and a whole implementation away, of course!