We have a culturally enforced strict rule of moving literally ALL new conversations into a subthread and I absolutely LOVE it. This means that if you want to respond to a comment, you never do it in the channel but in the subthread of _that_ comment.
This means that when you browse the channel itself, each individual line represents a conversation on a specific topic. You can essentially browse the "headlines" of the day all in one screen (for most channels), and if you care to hear more about how Bob resolved his problem with those third party build dependencies then you can view the conversation in the subthread.
This also enables folks to opt-in to notifications for channels, if they so desire, without getting overwhelmed with every new message that comes in.
This means that when you browse the channel itself, each individual line represents a conversation on a specific topic. You can essentially browse the "headlines" of the day all in one screen (for most channels), and if you care to hear more about how Bob resolved his problem with those third party build dependencies then you can view the conversation in the subthread.
This also enables folks to opt-in to notifications for channels, if they so desire, without getting overwhelmed with every new message that comes in.