David,

"ER" would be better than nothing, that's for sure. But it does have serious shortcomings:

1) people have to know what it means. Not that intuitive, I say.
2) MS would be reading it prematurely, wasting their time, because each one *could* be the "final" one which wants action.
3) It perpetuates the MS 'policy' of saying nothing and leaving the writer to *hope* that he/she sees something within 3 releases. This is totally ineffective and not really legitimate in a business of the size and value of MS, but nonetheless 'we' accept it and so it will not change.

I'm willing to bet that you and other blue-labeled folk have another "line" into MS, so you all would be quite happy with the status-quo. It is for the rest of us that something is needed.
I note yours (and JimB's and some others) disagreement with this new CATEGORY idea. As I said, your is a different situation. You've already got it good. Imust admit to considerable bewilderment at the 'disagreement' the few of you have expressed to this, since it cannot possibly harm *anything* and just might lead to making things a tad better!

Cheers,

Jim N

>Jim,
>
>Yes, the point of any thread here is to DISCUSS. So if someone posts an ER thread anyone can discuss it's merits, faults, possible workarounds etc. If you want to summarize a thread at the end and send it to foxwish@microsoft.com I'm sure it would help.
>
>>The point is to DISCUSS any item. Some might be killed off as easy workaround or some such. Others might get greatly amplified.
>>The idea would be to get to some content, for any item, which can then be passed on to MS. No problem with them reading elsewise.
>>
>>Thing is, we get *NO* responses with current method, so the search is on for a method which, showing some siginificant investment on one side, encourages the other side (MS) to respond.