Downloading to text was also the best way to search a thread for a particular keyword.
I'd download a thread to text, delete all responses older than a year (or whatever), and then use "FIND" to jump around to when certain products were mentioned.
Getting comments/opinions on the XPA-3 in the huge Emotiva thread, or the Denon 2313 in the long Denon XX13 Model thread would be a breeze... and it's way faster than search.
One more vote for getting this functionality back.