Agreed, AC has a valid purpose in many cases and yes to the AC who posted earlier about ACs making more useful contributions than I have, both good and BAD. I could say the same for you too. I'm not here to argue and rant off like some others. Its not a pissing contest like some would want it to be.
The intention was not so much to absolutely censor AC, but more to prevent the silly and nonsensical AC posts like First Post silliness.
The ACs are the ones who mostly post the nonsensical/offensive comments. People signed in, generally don't do so. Admittedly, registered users do post nonsense as well, but I'd venture to say less than ACs. I may be wrong.
Anonymity obviously has its benefits, like in the good example you made but it also allows people to use that to do things they normally would not do if they were recognized. I was just trying to suggest a way to reduce nonsense, although I admit that at times nonsense can be fun.
Adding Humor, Satire and intelligent wit is fine....real/proper/fun/witty Trolls.
Nonsensical "Yeah....I got first post" everytime..gets a little silly.
Of course censorship is not generally good...and yes.....I may have not thought of all the reasons AC serves when I made the post. This is /. People are waiting to pounce. ;) Thats fine. Just had good intentions. Wanted /. to be better. Good intentions are not always good enough.
There are pros and cons with everything.
There are Pros like the one you mentioned. ACs do post useful info. I'll give you that.
I guess I will just have to live with the cons of having to deal with silliness, meaningless rants.
Come to think of it...we need to laugh sometimes. ..so yeah...I may have been wrong...in the big scheme of things.
So yeah. Lets the ACs run wild. Let them say what we want. We can mod them the hell down if its crappy content.
Cue next rant/response/pounce/for/against/whatever.