Some more excellent points have been made since I last posted.

I really don't know where to stand, now. I'm all for sharing, but it's such a buzz-kill when a deal disappears before people can get in on it, or when a "call-in" presumably alerts the airline/hotel and they decide to play hardball with "all those FlyerTalkers".

I don't know how I feel about restricting it to just friends and acquaintances on FT. After all, how did all of us meet? Yes, at DOs, on-board flights, in clubs/lounges, etc. But initially, we all met here, in public, and began to learn about our respective character traits via the completely public forum. If someone wants to share something with me in confidence, of course I honor that. That's a character trait of mine that extends well above and beyond FlyerTalk. But being the past beneficiary of many great deals that were only publicly posted (as far as I know...), I do root for the "newbie" that still exists in us all to some degree...

This is potentially one of the more valuable FT threads in some time and I will continue to follow it both as an observer and participant. I don't know that a solution exists that can appease everybody, however. But as they say, such is life...