GUEST,Grishka

I expect one cause of "serious thread drift" (if there is such a beast) is disinterest in the OP and more interest in another (closely related or not) aspect - as seen by the drifter, and other participants. Personally, I see no harm in that, but recognize that it may annoy more structured type folks than I am. I also suspect, at times, the OP related matters are dealt with, in one manner or another, and people move on to other areas. Additionally, like with conversations, topics frequently move into varied directions, stimulated by items arising in the discussion.

As to thread "hijacking", I suspect there are similar issues, (and possibly similar people hijacking) as some folks may be cautious or lazy on opening new threads. But,I have noted that some threads stay open very long, which encourages this to occur. If you open a thread, it seems reasonable that you also have the option to ask it be closed, if that concerns you. However, none of this stuff actually concerns me at all (though I recognize it does some others).