>>>>>>>>What's so great about sliced bread?
>>>>>>>What is not so great about sliced bread?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>It's nothing special. Anyone who isn't exactly all thumbs can slice bread. I don't see anything epochal in it, to merit the saying "...best thing since sliced bread". So, this is linguistic archaeology, i.e. trying to dig out why do we say so.
>>>>>
>>>>>Perhaps, "This is the best thing to come along since the invention of sliced bread." is a better way to say it.
>>>>
>>>>And as we have found, the importance of it was because it made it easy to use the toaster. Now I'm curious as to why would a toaster be so important. Something wrong with the bread as such but toaster makes it right?
>>>
>>>The $ it costs to use the toaster versus toasting in the oven.
>>
>>Something wrong with the bread as such but toastING makes it right?
>
>After the bread cools, the butter doesn't melt into it as well as it does with toast. Try a nice braided challah as buttered toast. Food of the gods.

I think we have come to the substantial cultural difference here. The bread with/on which I grew up was firm enough that you could spread butter on it without having to melt it, and yet it was soft enough to eat. Proper bread is said to be "soft as soul" - but if you take a slice in your hand, and hold it horizontal by either supporting it like a plate, with your fingers near its edges, or by holding it by a corner, it will not sag if the slice is standard toaster thickness. So you could spread anything - butter, margarine, jam, cream cheese - on it without melting. Of course, you can still toast it if you really want, but you don't need to.

Our bakers weren't smart enough to sell as much water :).

So, my next question in this investigation is - how did people make sandwiches when oven-toasting wasn't practicable and toasters weren't invented yet? Was bread different then? I know the bread I have in mind exists here - I have found such bread once or twice. Was all bread like that before toasters?