Excerpts from David Bremner's message of Wed Feb 10 07:51:47 -0600 2010:
> Dear Scott and other interested parties;
> 
> As I play with json output a bit more, it seems like having
> --entire-thread optional would be useful for quite a few applications.
> For example, if I want to get the From address for a given message-ID, I
> with the current setup I have to post process the output. This is
> doable, but I wonder if the better option isn't to make --entire-thread
> optional for --format=json as well. 
> 
> Any thoughts?

I made --entire-thread forced becuase it kept the JSON patch minimal. The way
the thread structure is calculated is closely tied into the message tree
recursion. It would have required a much more significant refactoring to get
both ways; and, I wanted the patch to have as few barriers to being merged.

However, as patch still hasn't been merged and probably needs to be rebased,
there doesn't seem to be any good reason anymore to avoid the work.

Except, I can't do it. As I noted in an earlier e-mail, I have to abandon this
piece of code. I'm a bit busy backpacking through Central America. :-)