I see no reason why this thread would have to be closed until this page, where it started just becoming off topic. I have seen a lot of worse threads stay open. This site we encourage people to act mature, shutting them off from everything but happy posts just stuffs this up. Until flaming or spamming, i see no reason a post should be closed.
Especially this one, it is 95% mature conversation.
I encourage conversations like this as we get people involved, in a mature way on something other then art, as we all aren't here as just artists, just keep it good with no flaming and spamming and this site will be fine.