User blog comment:Jenburton/An Update on Message Wall/@comment-1142365-20111002154432/@comment-10532749-20111005214852

The reasoning is that Talk pages are confusing to new users.

Call me stupid, but the first time I saw them it was *very* hard for me to follow discussions.

They have many limitations as well - like you have no way of following only one selected discussion on a talk page - if a few are taking place simultaneously.